


Constellation

by John_f_drake



Series: Constellation [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, F/M, Multi, Porn With Plot, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Superhero Registration Act, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:42:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 112,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23126467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_f_drake/pseuds/John_f_drake
Summary: This is the story of how we saved the world.*You mean, how YOU saved the world.*The story of how WE saved the world.Two girls. Very different pasts. One Future... to save the world. An original superheroine story.
Series: Constellation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662352
Kudos: 5





	1. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Prologue

It’s been a scary last few years, hasn’t it? The world is nothing like it was at the start of the decade anymore. It’s like a whole ‘nother world.

Or is it? Maybe the world changed long before then. Maybe the world changed when Midnight rose in the 70s and declared half the United States his personal fiefdom. When he declared all Aberrants his property, and demanded they be turned over to him. Or maybe it was before even that.

As far as we can show, the first Aberrant was born in 1945. There have been a million theories as to why, ranging from nuclear radiation from the Bomb to secret experiments conducted to create weapons for the war to aliens living among us. They’re all wrong… but I’m getting ahead of myself. They say that the best place to start is the beginning… but which beginning? Before almost everyone reading this was born with the first Aberrant? That is A beginning, but not The beginning. With the rise of the Dawnbringers and the Fall of Midnight, the start of the modern age? Perhaps. If I were telling this story ten years ago, that is probably where I would have started it.

No longer. The questions that people ask all the time don’t have to do with Baldur, or Oracle, or Midnight, or the Dawnbringers or aliens or nightmares. They have to do with me. Where my life began. How I became… this.

I think they’re crazy, but if people really want to know… fine.

This is the story of how we saved the world.

You mean, how YOU saved the world.

The story of how WE saved the world.


	2. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #1 - Portals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover Art and character art available on johndrakeauthor.com

Issue #1  
Portals  
“We shouldn’t be here, Kiera!” Chelsey said, following her friend down the road. It was raining, and neither girl had an umbrella… they wore coats to keep it off them, barely, but their feet splashed through the puddles and they were mostly soaked anyway. “This is a bad idea. Let’s just go home.”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” Kiera said with a sigh. She walked past the graffiti on the street corner… a gang sign on top of an older gang sign, a still of the Brooklyn bridge, a stylized bust of Baldur, and a half dozen others. “You want a dimebag or not? I’ve dealt with this girl before.” She continued heading down the street, turning down an alley. “Everyone already thinks you’re a pussy… don’t give them more ammunition. You need to learn how to stand up for yourself,” Kiera advised her as she headed down the messy back alley past a stack of trash. “You need to…”

Kiera froze when she heard the smack of a fist on flesh. “Where. Is. My. Money,” a voice… a male voice… said. Holding up a hand to stop Chelsey, Kiera crept forward and looked around the corner.

Five people were illuminated by a single light over the club’s backdoor… four men and a woman. The woman she knew… it was Alison, her connection. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, she would have recognized her anywhere even without the celtic knot tattoo sleeve she wore catching the light. She went to college with Kiera’s older sister and tended bar at the club. The four men, she had never seen before… but she recognized the outfits on two of them. Police uniforms. These were cops!

Alison got back up from being doubled over, wheezing from the punch to her gut. “You’ll have it!” she gasped out. “I have customers coming, I swear… I’ll have your money.”

One of the cops stepped closer. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness of your situation, Alison. You’re paying for protection… do you understand what that means? A pretty girl like you could run into just about anyone in a dark alley like this. Why, I hear there are even slavers that steal women from alleys like this and sell them…” He drove a knee into her stomach, and Allison fell over gasping again. “Is that what you’d like? Would you like to become a whore? I promise you it’s a lot easier to make ends meet when you spend all day on your back with your legs tied open.”

Kiera didn’t realize she had been backing up. She did not want to be here. All thoughts of drugs, of getting high and the good time she had planned, they had all vanished. All she wanted to do now was be home in bed, warm and dry.

“Kiera, what is it-” Chelsey said softly, and Kiera jumped… and kicked a bottle.

“Who’s that!” one of the men, one not wearing a uniform said. He pointed at the single lightbulb… and it went out. In the dark she could see the man pointing towards them, and then the light reappeared shining right on top of them, making them obvious. Kiera’s already wide eyes went wider. An Ant… he was an Aberrant!

“Get them!” the Ant called.

“Run!” Kiera cried, and sprinted down the alley. Chelsey followed after, but the light vanished almost immediately, and in her panic it was hard to see in the cluttered alley. She tripped almost immediately, feeling Chelsey run past her. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring her bloodied knee beneath the skirt, and kept running. She had to get away. Had to…

Kiera suddenly found herself grabbed from behind and yanked back, then shoved against the wall. A gloved fist crashed into the pit of her stomach, causing the schoolgirl to gasp and go down onto her knees. “So the bitch wasn’t lying,” one of the cops said as he walked around the corner, holding Alison by her hair. “Her customers are here.”

Kiera heard a cry just down the alley, and saw Chelsey getting hauled back by the other crooked cop. Her hood had fallen off her face, and her blonde hair began to grow dark in the rain. “How sweet of you two to show up. I was worried I wouldn’t be getting paid tonight,” one of the thugs… the Ant… said. He nodded at the police officer holding Alison and he flung her forward to sprawl on the ground next to Kiera. “So… do your business so we can get our money and be on our way.”

“Please, just leave us alone,” Kiera begged, only to get slapped across her face.

“None of that,” the Ant said. “See, if you don’t buy your drugs, how am I supposed to get paid?” When Kiera didn’t immediately start moving, he sighed and reached into Alison’s coat, pulling out a few bags of powder. “Did someone fuck the brains right out of your head, girl? This is so simple a child can do it. Tell me what you came to buy.”

She glanced over at the two police officers, but they were obviously corrupt. They weren’t going to help her… and they knew Alison was dealing… so they didn’t care. Voicelessly, she pointed at two of the white bags. He pressed them into her hands, and then grabbed the small handbag hanging beneath her torn coat. He opened it, pulled out a wallet, and tossed it at Alison. “Now you have the drugs. Now you have the money. See how simple that was?” He growled at Alison. “Now pay me.”

Alison rapidly ripped through the wallet, grabbing all the cash there was and holding it up for the Ant to take. “Wasn’t that easy?” he mocked, slipping the bills into his pocket. “Get lost, bitch. And don’t be late again, understand me?”

Nodding frantically, Alison disappeared back down the alley. The light followed her as she did, chasing her, and she ran harder and faster the closer it got to her. The four men laughed.

He was an Aberrant – one of the tens of thousands of people born with supernatural abilities. Ever since people had started being born with powers back in the 40s, there had slowly come to be more and more of them – most of them with powers too weak to do anything useful, but that normal people couldn’t match. The government carefully tracked every instance of a power, no matter how minor, but the those Aberrants with weak powers – more commonly Ants – weren’t good for much of anything. Her mother was one of them… she could cause her hair to grow on demand. Besides letting her try all sorts of styles, it had never gotten their family anything useful.

The Ant turned back to Kiera. “So, what do you guys think?” he asked.

One of the cops shrugged. “If she’d just seen you, who cares… but she saw us. Can’t have that. Too fucking hard to be in business in this town under Baldur’s shadow. They vanish.”

The Ant smiled. He was an ugly man with a dozen scars across his face and gash in his lip, probably from cutting it on his teeth in a fight and it never healing right. “Rough luck, bitches. Not your day.” She didn’t even see the thug’s fist coming before it smashed into the side of her head, making her see stars and drop to the ground, the ran slapping against the back of her head. One of the cops walked over and grabbed her, pushing her against the wall while she heard Chelsey start to scream. The cop… the dim light reflecting off his badge read Aaron… grabbed her by her arms and forced her back up, shoving her against the wall.

“She’s pretty though,” the cop said, staring into her face. “She might not even have to go to a brothel. Some rich fuck might just buy this one. What do you say Mark?”

“Nice of her to make herself available to us,” the Ant answered. “She does look lovely… but still, can’t be sure. Should we take the merchandise for a test drive?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Aaron said, slapping Kiera hard enough that her own hood came off and water poured into her face. Panic overwhelmed her. Since he had let go of her arms to slap her, she twisted and jammed her elbow into his gut, hoping to make him flinch and let her run.

It didn’t work. The cop grunted, then growled at her. He snatched her wrists and slammed them against the brick wall of the alley hard enough to bruise. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, cunt,” he promised. Kiera was cornered, and as Mark crowded up to her as well she became aware of just how much bigger both of them were than her. She was a slender girl, and had always been proud of her figure, but she wasn’t made for brawling with brutes like these.

“Alright, bitch, that’s it!“ Aaron grabbed her by the throat and slammed her back against the wall. Kiera let out a pained grunt as the back of her head connected with the brick wall, disorienting her for a moment. Taking advantage of her unfocused state, her entire head swimming from the blow, he turned her around, pressing her flat against the wall. “Hold her!“ he yelled at Mark, who gladly did as he was told, his rough hands grabbing her and keeping her pressed against the wall, painfully meshing her tits against it under the her clothing.

Slowly, the fog in her head cleared, at least enough to notice the severity of her situation. There was a sharp tug as Aaron used a knife to cut away her belt and the hem of her pants, followed by the sensation of his hand grabbing the denim and yanking it down over her ass.

“No!“ she gasped, horrifically aware of what he had in mind. “Don’t! Let go, you pig!“ She began to struggle again, trying to wriggle out of Mark’s grip, but this time, the guard watched her closely, grabbing her arms and holding them behind her back, keeping her upper body pressed against the wall without any room to escape.

Kiera felt panic rise within her. They were going to… they were going to… Chelsey screamed, and Kiera looked over in horror to find the blond on her back in the dirty alley. Her skirt lay on the ground a dozen feet away, and even while she watched one of the men pushed her panties into her mouth, muting her as the the cop between her legs raped her. Kiera felt the cold air against her bare ass – they had not pulled her pants further down, apparently only wanting easy access. “Against the dumpster,“ Aaron said, and he and Mark dragged Kiera towards the green dumpster on the alleyside. Again Kiera tried to twist and writhe away from them, but their grip was like a vise. The fact that her pants were now around her thighs did not make moving any easier, either.

With a brutal shove, Mark slammed her upper body down onto the dumpster’s top, knocking the air from her lungs. A moment later, she felt the weight of Aaron’s body leaning onto hers, pushing her further against the rotting wood cover, pressing her tits flat once more. His breath offended her nose as he whispered into her ear, “Ever had a real cock in there, whore?!”

Gritting her teeth, Kiera felt something warm brush against her ass. “Only ones bigger than yours!” she hissed. It would have been more effective as an insult if her voice didn’t break halfway through.

The Ant, Mark, burst out laughing. “We’ve got a feisty one here, don’t we?”

“You think I’m joking?“ Aaron snarled, the cop smacking the back of her head painfully. “Then how’s this for joking?“ She felt him shift, resting a good portion of his weight on top of her. Then his hips lunged forward, slamming his hard cock into her dry and tight cunt.

“FUCK, you bastard!“ Kiera called out, the surge of pain too quick to keep from giving a tiny shriek. Kiera wasn’t a stranger to sex, she’d slept with all three of her boyfriends she’d had, but despite that and despite her mockery, the cop’s cock felt huge inside her. It burned in her, felt like it was ripping her apart.

Aaron did not waste any time. Mark flicked his hand to bring over a light so they could see the pretty girl in the rain, then he grabbed Kiera’s wrists again, keeping them in place behind her back as he pushed down to keep her pinned. This freed Aaron’s hands to grab her hips, steadying the rebellious schoolgirl so he could thrust in deeper. The sudden pain had brought tears to her eyes, but the rain carried them away almost instantly. Kiera was grateful for that – the sensation was horrible, shameful, disgusting and painful, but she was not going to let her pride and dignity be taken away by these two thugs. She certainly was not going to cry for them.

As he kept thrusting into her, she managed to swallow down further cries of pain, merely grunting as he speared her tight and dry cunt hard and deep. Her hands, still held behind her back by Mark, curled into tight fists as she sought to internalize the pain. “How do you like that, bitch? How do you like that, huh?” Aaron hissed between grunts of pleasure, enjoying her tightness around his raging shaft.

“Bet she’ll make us a a nice couple of bucks when we sell her, won’t she?” Mark asked, brushing her soaked hair from her face. He was obviously enjoying watching her pretty features as she set her face and bit her lip to keep from giving voice to her pain. “She as tight as she looks?”

“Tight as fuck,” Aaron hissed in pleasure, digging his nails into her hips beneath her shirt.

“Get… off… me…” Kiera spat. “I’ll… I’ll kill you. You bastards! You bastards!”

“Yeah right! You’re in no position to talk big now!“ Aaron grunted, a lecherous grin on his face. “How does it feel… to have a man’s… cock all the way… inside you now?“ He slapped her ass when she didn’t answer. Kiera knew the game he was playing… he wanted to boost his ego as much as he wanted a hole for his cock, the son of a bitch. She had no intentions of playing along with this, not if it could be helped.

“I don’t know… is it all the way in yet?” Kiera forced out, trying to keep her voice from breaking from the pain. “I can’t tell.”

“Shut up, whore!” the furious cop lashed out, punching her in the back of her head before resuming his brutal thrusts. Her cunt was quickly growing ragged and pained from the abuse.

“I thought… you wanted an answer,“ Kiera mocked, breathing heavily under the assault. God it hurt so bad… but her taunting wasn’t reckless, it was anything but. These men had already announced their intention to never let her go. While Kiera had never found herself in this much trouble before, she had been in a tight spot or two… she was going to get out of this. What she needed was to get them angry… so angry they did something stupid. In the darkness and the rain, if she could get away from them for just a minute or two, she could escape. Still, it was difficult to think. The cop’s cock drilled in and out,and it was getting harder for her to focus on anything but the pain and degradation of being raped in a filthy alley.

Each of his thrusts pushed her against the trash-filled metal box, the old wood lid creaking in rhythm with her brutal fucking. The sound of it joined with Chelsey’s gagged screams as the men raped their two victims. He started slapping her ass again every now and then, adding the sounds to the echoes of pain and pleasure and falling rain that sounded in the alley. Kiera hissed at the sharp, stinging slaps, but still was too defiant to start screaming.

Mark noticed that, looking at her determined, albeit pain-flushed expression. “The bitch is tough, gotta give her that!”

“And tight!“ Aaron commented, obviously relishing how her fuckhole gripped him with each thrust into her. The man released his hold on her hips to grab a fistful of her dark, soaked hair, yanking her head back roughly to force her to look up at him. “I don’t think you know what they do to defiant whores where you’re going, do you? They’ll make you earn every breath you take until you beg for each and every bit of air you have. Than you’ll be wishing you hadn’t pissed me off.” Aaron slapped her across the face with his other hand, adding the sting of her cheek to the pain of her raped pussy.

She could hear his breath becoming erratic and his thrusts quicker… and knew that he was close to climax. The thought of him cumming inside her was disgusting, but it seemed inevitable… at least it would hopefully free her of his vile attention. He let go of her hair so he could grab her hips again, thrusting into her so hard and deep it caused her to groan in pain, the first real sound of discomfort they had coaxed from her since the initial cry when he had forced himself in dry.

And for Aaron, it was obviously enough. “Oh fuck… you’re making me cum! You useless druggie whore!“ He yelled, smacking the back of her head hard as he slammed his full length into her again. A moment later, she felt his hot cum splatter into her sore cunt, the sensation as degrading as it was uncomfortable. Aaron kept his cock inside of her while he shot his entire load, grunting and groaning in pleasure while Kiera could do little but wait for him to finish. Finally, he pulled out, gasping. “Now that was a good fuck!“ Smacking her ass, he stepped over to her face, grabbed her hair and forced her head up again.“ And how did that feel for you, bitch?“

Kiera gasped in a breath. “Not bad… for your first time,” she spat, hoping that her face didn’t show how much she hurt, that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to walk normally.

The cop’s eyes went dark. “This cunt has a death wish,” he snarled.

“Relax,” Mark snapped. “She’s trying to piss you off. You want to hurt her, hurt her with your cock… don’t damage the merchandise.”

Kiera groaned in frustration. She’d hoped that they would let her up to try to beat her and she’d have an opportunity to run… but instead, Mark moved up behind her. Of course the Ant wouldn’t be content with just watching. She grit her teeth, still feeling the dull ache in her cunt and knowing getting fucked again would feel worse than the first rape.

While Mark took his position behind her, the corrupt cop took over the task of pushing her body down and keeping her hands firmly held behind her back. “You made a fucking mess,” Mark said, annoyed. “Damnit, couldn’t have pulled out? I hate sloppy seconds!“ He slapped Kiera’s bare ass as if it was somehow her fault, then glared at Aaron.

The man simply shrugged. “You know… she has other holes to fuck,” he suggested. Kiera stiffened with dread.

“Great idea!” the Ant said with a laugh. “Sure, why not. Let’s pound your little asshole, bitch!“ He slapped her ass again and then grabbed her round, cute asscheeks, spreading them to expose her pale, puckered opening.

Kiera could not help the rising of panic inside of her. She’d done anal a few times but always on her own terms and always with gentle, caring partners. But an anal rape… she shuddered at the mere thought how painful this would probably be.

Mark didn’t waste much more time. Already, she felt his cockhead brush against her sphincter, slick from the rain pouring down. Still, her struggles to wiggle free were pointless – Aaron kept her pushed down, keeping Kiera in position for his comrade’s cock.

“No, you bastards! Don’t!“ Kiera gasped, then groaned as she felt him push in. She resisted, of course… she couldn’t relax in this situation, even if it would have helped her. The schoolgirl closed her eyes at the burning sensation that spread from her lower body when her sphincter began to give way, slowly being stretched by the large cock forced into her. “Aagh… no… pull it out! I swear… I’m going to… cut it off… the moment hnnn… I get… out of… heaaaaaAAAAARGH!“

This time, she could not keep the scream inside. Mark immediately started to lunge forward once his cockhead had popped into her asshole, cramming almost half his cock inside her in one powerful thrust. It was agonizing, more so than Kiera had expected. “Oh, holy shit,” he exclaimed. “This has got to be the tightest ass I’ve ever had!”

Kiera tried to taunt him, anything to distract him from her obvious torment, but all she could do was gasp… her voice came out interrupted by groans of discomfort and pain. She wasn’t able to utter any other insults for quite a while as the Ant started to thrust into her with short, hard strokes that were aimed to push more and more of his length into her tight ass. Kiera could feel every inch as the offending member pushing deeper, stretching her unprepared, unwilling asshole around his girth. The burning sensation spreading through her lower body was a nightmarish torment while her rapist groaned in absolute pleasure.

In her attempt not to cry out, the schoolgirl dug her fingers into the old wood of the cover, not even noticing the pain as splinters dug into her fingers when compared to the awful sensation in her ass. Mark seemed not to tire in the least. In fact, quite the opposite was true: the more her unwilling asshole grabbed his cock, the more aroused he got during the rape, the more intense and powerful his thrusts became and the more pain he caused the girl.

She had no idea for how long he could keep this up, but she prayed to God that he would soon either tire or cum and thus pull his awful length from her aching asshole and leave her the fuck alone, for she didn’t think she would be able to walk normally for a week after such a brutal rape. There was nothing the rebellious girl could do but try and endure her ordeal until Mark was done with her ass – which was taking an awfully long time.

Suddenly, however, salvation seemed to appear from nowhere as a door nearby opened and one of the residents poked his head out, an older man whose stocky frame pointed to him being probably one of the club’s bouncers. It didn’t matter to Kiera who he was, he was her chance of getting away from these monsters and their awful, violating cocks.

For a moment, he just stared at the scene before him, the four men holding the two schoolgirls down, two of them currently pumping a cock into one of them. Kiera looked up at him and hissed, her voice labored and laden with the pain she felt. “Does it look… like… I’m having… fun here? HELP ME!”

The man seemed slow to act, desiring to keep himself out of any trouble, but slowly his common decency overcome his fear. “Leave the ladies alone,” he growled as he stepped closer… only to stop dead in his tracks the moment the light caught on the Aaron’s badge.

“Police business,” Aaron said, narrowing his eyes. We’re giving these two whores what they were asking for.” To emphasize his point, he put one hand on the gun on his belt. “You don’t really want to get involved, do you?” Even as he spoke, he kept his other hand pushing Kiera down by her shoulder blades to Mark could rape her in peace.

The bouncer was frozen in place, eyes flicking between them. Then he seemed to shrink in on himself. “Ah, yes… Sorry sir…” the big man mumbled… and then stepped back into the door.

“You fucking coward!“ Kiera yelled after him as he closed the door, just as Mark, who had slowed down his thrusts to wait how this played out, resumed his fast, merciless pace, drilling his full length into her bowels again.

“Looks like he didn’t… ugh… want to… risk his life… for a lowlife cunt like… oh fuck.. .you,” Mark grunted happily, using his hands to spread her asscheeks, watching how his cock disappeared into her sore hole.

Kiera couldn’t help it anymore. She started to sob. For just a second, one second, she thought she was saved. That someone was coming to save her, that someone cared what was happening to her. That bouncer was bigger than any of them, but even when they were armed, he could have called into the club, summoned help, done something… and he hadn’t. He had been too afraid, or too apathetic. Or both.

Or maybe a piece of shut druggie fucktoy like her just wasn’t worth risking anything to save.

Mark did not seem to notice his toy’s sobbing, too preoccupied with his rising lust to pay attention to her anymore. By now, her asshole was starting to bleed from the brutal abuse, not that the paltry lube that offered changed anything about the discomfort of having his cock pound her bowels, or the humiliation that this all happened against her will and she was powerless to do anything about it. All the teenage could hope right now was that Mark would finish quickly so at least they would stop touching her for a minute. Her hopes and dreams felt like they had become that small… she just wanted it to stop hurting for just a minute.

“Oh yes… fuck, you pretty fucking cunt… you’re making me cum!” Mark grunted. Kiera wailed as she felt his balls tighten against her pussy, his dick throb inside her… and then she grimaced as she felt his cock spewing a massive load up her asshole. She grunted as the thug pushed his cock in deep with a few more thrusts, wanting to spend all inside her.

They stepped away from her, leaving her in the rain and laughing while they did. Kiera felt too sore, to weak to get up a run, even though now was her chance. She could only look over at them placidly, mind dazed… and that was when she saw the portal open up beneath the other cop.

It didn’t look like much… a shimmering violet outline that didn’t seem to give off much light, but there was something on the other side of the rip in reality. Kiera had never seen anything like it. The cop screamed as he fell through the portal, and it immediately began closing after him. A second later, the manhole-sized circle had vanished, and the sound of him screaming vanishing abruptly with it.

“What the fuck was that!” Aaron swore, furious. None of them had seen it, Kiera realized dully. None of them had really seen what happened, hadn’t been looking at the floor when he vanished. To them, they had just turned around and he was gone. She had seen it, and she was in shock.

A superpower. A real superpower.

She’d seen them before – hell, even one of her teachers had been a heroine once and Lux loved demonstrating her power for them – but here in the rainy night, surrounded by monsters, it seemed like something mythical.

“What the fuck happened to Hammond?” Mark said, looking left and right. Then a portal appeared out of nowhere behind Aaron and a hand came out, punching the cop in the back on his head. The arm vanished almost immediately, pulled back into the violet portal and this second portal closed quickly – faster than the other, larger one had, nearly instantly. By the time Aaron turned, swinging his nightstick wildly, it was gone… and he smacked the stick right into Mark’s shoulder. “Ow! The fuck’s the matter with you?”

“Something hit me!” Aaron hissed.

“I didn’t fucking hit you,” he cursed… then jumped as a portal opened beneath him. It didn’t open quickly enough to catch him like it had the cop, however… he jumped to the side, and the portal began to vanish again immediately.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” the other thug standing over Chelsey said. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” He started to run for the entryway to the alley.

“Wait!” Mark protested, but he was too late. A small portal opened behind him at ankle level, and a swarm of tiny balls came spilling out, propelled quickly in front of him and beneath his feet. The thug went down hard, cracking his head on the filthy floor. He lay there, moaning softly, while a portal opened beneath him. Then he fell through it and was gone.

The two remaining men looked around frantically. Aaron dropped his nightstick and drew his gun, and Mark pulled his own piece from behind his back. “Where is it coming from?” Aaron whispered, trying to look in all directions at once. He slowly backed up until his back was against a wall. He didn’t see the portal open behind him, but Kiera did. She saw the two arms – feminine arms – come out of the wall, grab the back of the man’s shirt and belt, and yank him backward as if trying to pull him through the portal… but it was too small. Instead of falling through it, his head bashed against the wall and he dropped in a boneless pile to the alley floor.

Mark spun and fired, but the portal was already closed. His gun barked three times in the night. “Where are you!” he yelled furiously.

A violent rip in reality opened in the alley, and… and… Donna stepped out. “Right here,” she said with a smile.

Mark raised his gun and fired, but another portal, blue this time, appeared just in front of him. It caught the shots, and pushed them through the small violet one that had just appeared beneath his legs. Three bullets ripped through his calves, and Mark screamed as he dropped to the ground. Donna took three running steps and kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling across the ground. And just like that, it was over.

“Donna…” Kiera whispered, disbelief in her voice. “You’re… you’re…”

A hero…

Kiera recognized the beautiful high school senior… of course she did. Kiera had been going to school with Donna Saito since 5th grade, and she still felt like she barely knew the girl. She was popular enough, she supposed, but she didn’t really fit in with any of the cliques. Too rich and too pretty to fit in with the freaks, too odd to fit in with the popular girls, her fashion, her dyed hair and piercings might have put her with the goths if she wasn’t so cheerful, and her grades would have probably put her with the nerds if she wasn’t so social. Her features were somewhat Asian but only half, not enough so to fit in with their clique either. Her straight black hair had a streak of bright pink straight down one of the bangs, bright even in the rain. The thing that always made her stand out as school, though, had always been her eyes. One eye blue, the other the same pink as her hair, it made meeting her eyes difficult for most… normal people didn’t have eyes like that.

But Donna wasn’t normal… Kiera knew that now. Her eyes were the same colors as her portals. And in eight years of knowing her, she had never known about her abilities.

“Shhh,” Donna said. She opened up a small portal and reached through it, pulling out a few sets of handcuffs. Moving quickly, she kicked the guns away from both Mark and Aaron before opening a portal beneath them, letting them vanish through it. Then she puts the cuffs on the two men. Opening another portal, she reached through and grabbed a small white case with a red cross. “Here, let’s have a look at you…” She walked up to Chelsey first. Unsurprising, since the blonde girl had just curled into a fetal position and wasn’t moving. Kiera felt abruptly ashamed she hadn’t done more to help the girl, hadn’t even thought about how she would get her out after she ran.

After checking out the two girls, bandaging their scrapes in the rain, Donna put down the kit. “Wait here a minute,” she said, then opened a shimmering purple portal to her size and walked through it. This one didn’t vanish, and Kiera could see New York’s city skyline through it… it was like looking out a window onto a rooftop. A few moments later, she came back dragging the other cop, still unconscious but cuffed now. Another minute, and she came back with the fourth man.

“The cops are on their way,” Donna promised. “Real cops. I called it in three times to make sure. I should go before they get here. Do you need anything else?”

“Donna…” Kiera said, and Donna jumped.

She peered at Kiera, seeming to really look at her face for the first time. “Kiera?” she asked, shocked.

“You… you saved me! You saved us!”

Donna swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. “It’s… it’s no problem. Just trying to help.” Then she opened a portal in front of her, stepped through it, and the heroine was gone.


	3. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #2 - Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover Art and character art available on johndrakeauthor.com

Issue #2 – Legacy  
“This is so cool!” Em said, laying on Donna’s bed and holding her phone over her head. “ ‘The new superheroine saved two local women last Friday night outside of Last Call,’ ” Emily read off the screen, smiling. “ ‘The woman, none other than Queens’ own Belladonna Saito, attends the prestigious Middlestorm Academy and is credited with the arrest of two corrupt police officers and the criminals they associated with, known human traffickers. Beware criminals… with her portals she could be behind you right this second!’ ” Emily laughed, tossing down her phone and rolling over on the bed to look over at the crimson-faced Donna. “A little dramatic there at the end, but still… You’re a superhero now, Belladonna,” she said, stressing the name and smirking. “I’m dating a superhero!”

Donna blushed, filling out the last problem on her homework. “It’s not the first time I’ve been out there,” she said weakly. “It’s just the first time I’ve been recognized.”

“Still, this is incredible!” Emily said. “I had no idea you had such a cool ability!”

“I told you, Em,” Donna said, putting her books back into her bag and turning in her chair to look at her girlfriend. “I told you I was an aberrant back in freshman year.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “But I thought you were, like, an Ant. I didn’t think you were this… fucking… awesome!” She laughed, picking up her phone again to read the article. “Can you, like… take us to China or someplace cool?”

Donna rolled her eyes. “Do you speak Chinese? ‘Cuz I don’t.”

“You know what I mean!” Em protested.

Donna laughed and shook her head. “Can’t go that far,” she admitted. “Only about five hundred feet.” Donna snapped her fingers. “Which reminds me…”

Donna got up and began walking around the room to the series of shelfs on the on the back wall. Em watched as she touched the back of each shelf, one at a time. Each shelf was loaded with with things… a medical kit, a phone, a jar full of a strange smoke, and a half dozen other things she wasn’t certain of of. “What are you doing?” Em asked.

“Making waypoints,” Donna said. “When I said five hundred feet, that’s without preparation. If I plan ahead…” she smiled as she finished touching the last shelf and turned back to her girlfriend. “I can go a lot further.”

“Ahh,” Em said smiling. “So you coooould take me to China, you’re just being lazy. I understand.”

Donna looked up at Em, rolled her eyes… and opened a portal beneath her. Em shrieked as she fell through it, dropping through the other portal back down onto the bed, bouncing and beginning to laugh furiously. “So. Fucking. COOL!” Emily said, her smile so wide that it had to hurt her face. “I have my own superhero girlfriend. How awesome is that?” She rolled over on the bed, turning to bring up her phone again. “So, am I your damsel in distress?” she said, blinking her eyes innocently. “Are you going to need to rescue me from a bunch of criminals after they tie me to some railroad tracks?”

Donna shook her head. “There’s practically no crime here in New York anymore, Em… you know that. Who do you think is going to kidnap you, Midnight?”

“What about this other guy they mention,” she asked, looking at her phone. “This… ‘Hypnos’ creep. The new supervillain around.”

Donna shook his head, chuckling as she sat down on the edge of the bed and began to run her hands through Em’s soft hair. “I can’t believe there’s a criminal within a hundred miles still dumb enough to do it… let alone publicly declare themselves and give themselves a name. Do they live under a rock? Baldur lives in Manhattan – it’s not going to end well for them.”

“Ooooooh,” Em said, abruptly even more excited. “Do you know him? Are all of you, like, friends?”

Donna’s smile became forced for just a second. “I’m not a real hero, Em… not yet, anyway. Not like the Dawnbringers are. I’ve never gotten to meet Baldur… although I’d like to, of course.”

“Well when you do,” Em nudged her conspiratorially, “make sure you get me an autograph! He’s my idol!”

She rolled her eyes again at the eager girl. “He’s everyone’s idol, Em. He’s my idol. He’s… well, he’s Baldur. When you save the world from a monster like Midnight, it inspires people. I want to be just like him.”

Emily’s eyes twinkled. “You will be, Donna… I believe in you.”

Donna leaned down to kiss her. Her lips felt impossibly soft beneath her own. “Thanks,” she said smiling.

“Donna!” her mother called from downstairs. “What did I say about closed doors while Emily is over?”

Eyes wide, Donna opened a portal and half helped, half pushed Emily through it, letting her out on the lawn. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” she whispered with a smile as the portal started to close. “She already left mom!” Donna said as she walked to the door and opened it.

Her mother stood there, one eyebrow up. Akiko was a gorgeous woman… it was easy to tell where Donna got her best features from. She was tall, fit, and well built… she hadn’t let herself go since she had retired from being a hero herself. “Portals aren’t playthings, Donna…” she chastised, but the smile on her face made it obvious she wasn’t really upset with her daughter.

“No idea what you’re talking about mom,” Donna said with a grin as she walked past her. “I guess time got away from me. Has Dad been waiting long?”

***

Sam pressed in with a series of low thrusts with the wooden sword. Donna’s feet backpedaled on the padded floor as she tried to back away quickly and return to even footing, but the relentless assault followed her every step. Her Father had once been Legion, after all, and he followed her closely, making Donna keep her movements solely on the defensive. More often than not, Donna found the hilt of her sword closer to Sam than the blade.

Sam then dropped into a low crouch and came up under Donna’s defense. Donna slashed her own wooden sword down to deflect the attack, but she needed to straighten immediately to fend off the continuing assault as he continued the ferocious attack. Her father was an expert combatant… she knew she had been read into a trap, and she fully expected the next attack as Sam shifted his weight to his back leg and dived in, both sword tip aimed for Donna’s stomach. She spat a silent curse and spun her practice weapon down… too slow.

Even as she jumped back, her father’s weapon caught her, delivering a painful slap against her side even through the padded gi she wore. Annoyed, he threw he sword onto the floor. “You should not have missed that move,” he said bluntly. “You aren’t trying hard enough, Donna.”

“Maybe because this is stupid?” Donna replied, lowering her sword tip to the floor and leaned on the weapon. “Why are we practicing without powers? When am I ever going to be without mine? And you are ten times the fighter I am when you’re using yours.”

“I’m ten times the fighter you are right now without them,” her father said, “because you aren’t practicing.”

She sighed in annoyance. “I can do so much more,” Donna protested.

“And what if you don’t have your power?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “There is plenty of animite floating around. If you get a sliver in you, no more portals… and then where will you be?”

“And where will I be if I go up against someone who’s practiced using their power while I don’t practice mine?” Donna said stubbornly.

“Pick up your blade,” Sam growled, narrowing his eyes and taking a threatening step forward. An arm, made of ephemeral energy, shot from his back down to the floor, grabbing his sword and flipping it up into his hand before vanished. Donna hesitated and Sam charged, sword leading.

Donna dropped to a crouch, deflecting and spinning away, and her father pressed furiously, snapping off cut after cut and backing Donna around in circles. Donna defended well enough – for all her complaining, her father had thoroughly drilled her in combat with a variety of weapons and barehanded since she was ten, well before her power had awakened – and began to notice an all-too-familiar pattern as Sam’s attacks came consistently lower. Donna understood that her father meant to prove his point with actions, not words.

Two could play that game.

Sam came up and under and Donna stiffened and straightened, preparing for the attack. His sword dived in, and Donna was ready for him. He executed the same attack that had caught her before, smiling smugly at the impact of his bokkun against hers. Donna had used the same imperfect parry again, leaving her open the same way. Her father followed up with the counter that had caught her thigh last time… but this time, Donna opened a portal in the way of it.

Sam pulled back immediately, his sword pulling back from the violet ring as Donna counter attacked… but her attack, quick as it was, was as flawed as the parry. Sam dropped his sword tip beneath her thrust and flicked upward. The move sent the thrust just too far upwards, and he dropped straight down to the floor, under the arc of Donna’s swinging bokkun and spun a single circuit, driving his booted heel into the back of Donna’s exposed knee. Before Donna had even realized the attack, she found herself lying flat on her back.

Sam abruptly broke his own momentum and threw his feet back under him, thrusting the wooden sword for her throat… but Donna wasn’t there anymore. He caught a glimpse of her, and himself, through the rapidly closing portal, spinning as she descending towards him blade outstretched… and six faintly glowing arms shot from his back to grab the sword, stopping it an inch before it came to rest at his throat.

Donna grinned. Sam did not.

“Wasn’t that more fun?” she said smiling. “That’s more like how it would go.”

Sam sighed, but he couldn’t help himself. He smiled at his daughter. “You really do need to learn this, you know. Your power can’t do everything for you, even if it is strong.”

“Strong enough,” she said, shrugging. “It’s nothing compared to those the Dawnbringers have.”

“You might be surprised,” he answered with a grin, walking to the edge of the padded floor and lifting his water bottle, tossing Donna’s to her. She caught it with a portal, letting it drop directly into her hand. “Show off,” Sam grumbled. He sat down on the floor, patting beside him to encourage Donna to do the same. She did, her thigh sore from where she’d been hit but shrugging it off. “I’ve seen the papers, you know,” he said. “You’re starting to get attention. I just worry you aren’t ready for the sort of people who could come out of the darkness at you.”

“God, you’re as bad as Em,” she protested. “There’s no one like that in New York. No aberrant with a brain would start using their powers for crime in the same city the Dawnbringers set up in.”

Sam put a hand on the side of her face, and smiled at her. She smiled back as he laughed. “I love you, Belle,” he whispered. “You’re going to change the world in a way we never could. I’d take you over a dozen Baldurs.”

Her eyes twinkled. She wouldn’t let anyone in the whole world call her that… but her dad. “Then you’re an idiot, Dad. But a sweet one.”

***

Most of the class wasn’t paying attention as the video played, but Donna did. Her mismatched eyes stared with rapt interest as Baldur spoke on the screen, speaking of heroic ideals and the importance of hard work. It wasn’t surprising that people weren’t listening – they had all seen this video again and again, since they were in elementary school. Donna had seen it a hundred times.

It didn’t matter. She loved it. She loved all of them.

Baldur was a living legend… the greatest hero that had ever been. In an age when heroes were being killed nearly every day, Baldur had appeared. When Midnight had reigned over the world and nearly cast it into another World War, it had been Baldur who had stopped him, bringing light back to the world. Donna wasn’t a fan of Baldur – she idolized him. He was the kind of hero who changed the world, who made it better, and she envied him for it. Donna had watched every interview he had ever given, watched every broadcast of him fighting – someday, she hoped to be half the hero he was.

The video continued with the man being asked questions, giving his perspective. He was unbelievably handsome, especially for a man in his 40s. He looked young, muscled, athletic. She wasn’t into men at all, but even so she felt like she could get lost in his blue eyes. In fact, she was so distracted watching her idol that it took her a few minutes to realize that Mrs Homes was waving to her.

Slowly getting up in the darkened room, she walked past a trio of boys laughing to one another, chuckling as one of them drew Midnight’s insignia onto the desk. She shook her head. Edgy assholes. Why couldn’t they just draw dicks like everyone else? Did they really not understand the plague that Baldur had saved the world from before they were born, just how bad things got when Midnight reigned? Did they not realize how many people died?

She approached her teacher, who pulled her out into the hall. “Yes?” Donna asked. “I’m missing the video…”

“You’ve seen it before,” Mrs Homes said, a smile on her face.

“I like it,” Donna admitted with her own smile. As a rule, her teachers liked her – she was one of the top students in the academy after all.

“Mrs Green asked to see you,” her teacher said, and Donna’s breath caught a little. That was stupid. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the guidance councilor before, but… Lucy Green was LUX. She had been a legend as a heroine before getting injured and retiring. The fact that she was here, helping get students on to their best lives, was just one more way of being a hero as far as Donna was concerned. The woman was amazing.

“Head on down there now,” Mrs Homes continued. “She said she had some news on your college applications. I’m sure you can afford to miss the rest of the video… Baldur will still be around when you get back,” she teased.

Donna blushed a little and turned to go, but her teacher put a hand on her shoulder. “And Donna…” she said softly. She looked back at her. “Chelsey is one of my students, too… thank you,” she said, trying to hold back tears. “You’ll always be my hero.”

Warmth filled Donna as she smiled back. “Thanks, Mrs H. Just happy to help.”

***

Lux was a gorgeous woman. In her early thirties and built like an amazon, she was everything that Donna thought of when she thought “superheroine.” A bit under six feet tall with long blond hair cascading down her back, even after her retirement Lucy Green kept the build of a professional athlete. She rose to her feet as Donna walked in, and Lux stood half a head taller than she did.

“So you are the girl from the papers,” Lux said, looking Donna up and down with an appraising eye before smiling. “I had to say, I knew you have a power – we have access to all registries on our students, of course – but I didn’t know you were so… impressive.” She smiled as she gestured for Donna to sit down. The girl did eagerly, and Lux moved back around her desk, limping as she went.

It made Donna’s heart ache to see that. Her leg had been broken pretty badly during the arrest of Savos 6 years ago… that was when she had retired from being a heroine. According to what Donna had heard, it had taken her more than a year to be walking again afterward. The strength to take a sacrifice like that and keep fighting, even in another way… Donna aspired to something like that.

Lux sank down into her chair a bit heavily, smiling warmly across the desk. “Really wanted to meet you for myself,” the councilor said with a grin.

Donna grinned sheepishly. “You’ve met me a half dozen times, Ms Green,” she corrected.

“True,” Lux admitted, “But I didn’t know who you were then.” She learned forward. “You’ve made quite an impression now. Your school pictures are across the internet now… everyone’s talking about the new heroine in town.”

“I didn’t do much,” Donna said, meaning it. “Jus-”

“True,” Lux admitted with a smile, “But it was enough to capture the imagination I suppose.” She reached over to a bunch of envelopes, dropping them onto the desk with a thump. “You applied to some very good schools Ms Saito,” she admitted as she looked through the envelopes. “A lot of… excellent… schools. Most of them haven’t gotten back to you yet, but they’ve gotten back to us. They’ll be taking you, of course. Your grades are excellent, and if any rejected you I’m sure they’ll be getting back to you in the next few days after the news circulates. Your heroics have paid off handsomely.”

Donna was trapped between joy and horrified shame. “That’s… not…” she whispered. “That’s not why I…”

“You must admit it worked, though… you’ve gotten some very interesting offers.” She moved envelopes… big ones, far too big to be rejections… off to the side one after the other, stopping briefly on one labeled Yale. Then she pushed it off the desk. “Some very, very interesting offers,” Lux continued as she leaned forward. “I got a call today from Oracle. You know him, right?”

Donna felt her heart start beating faster. “You… you know Oracle?”

“We’ve spoken a few times,” Lux admitted with a smile. “He called to ask about you.”

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Baldur might be the greatest hero in the world and by far the most famous, but he wasn’t the one who lead the Dawnbringers, who guided them and recruited for them… who trained them. Oracle… he had trained Baldur, for gods sake. “Me?” she asked, and hated that her voice seemed like a squeak.

“He wants to meet you,” Lux said, looking her up and down again. “I thinks he can make something out of you. I guess I can see why. And you have been earning a reputation around the city.”

“But Ms Green… Lux…” Donna protested. “I’m just… me. I can’t do anything spectacular. What do the Dawnbringer’s want with me?”

The blonde heroine laughed. “Oh I think you’ll measure up just fine. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You should go… this is the rest of your life.”

“What if I disappoint them?” Donna whispered.

“What if you never live up to your potential?” Lux countered with a smile. “You could have a valuable role there… just think about how useful you could be to the team after Oracle is done with you! This is your destiny, Donna.”

Donna felt short of breath… her heart was beating so fast. “I don’t know what to say… of course! Of course I’ll go!”


	4. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #3 - Dawnbringers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover Art and character art available on johndrakeauthor.com

Issue #3 – Dawnbringers  
“Do you have everything?” Sam asked. “You don’t want to forget anything…”

Donna rolled her eyes, picking up the duffel bag. It was heavy, stuffed full with everything she owned that was worth anything to her. It was good her father had made her work out since she was a little girl… otherwise he might need to carry her bag out to the car when she was picked up, and that would have been the single most humiliating moment of her life. “Yes Dad,” she said, sighing. “I’m not going to China. I’m going to Manhattan. It’s like a twenty minute drive. Or two hours with traffic… you know, either way.” She grinned at him. “If I forgot something, I’ll come back and get it.”

He shook his head. “Still can’t believe you’re leaving. I thought I’d at least have until the end of summer, when you took off for college.”

“I did too,” Donna said, a little quieter than a teenager probably should be when thinking about leaving home. “But they asked me to come right away. Didn’t even want me finishing school… they just asked the school to graduate me.” Being technically a government agency had its perks, she supposed. Her diploma had come with less pomp and circumstance than she had imagined, but she had it framed in her bag anyway. It would be the only diploma she had for quite a while, probably… she would likely be too busy with the Dawnbringer’s to continue her education for a while. She could go back to school after she had made a name for herself as a hero perhaps, or after she retired.

“I’m really proud of you, Donna,” Sam said, embracing her. “We both are.”

The flame-red sports car came into view around the corner, and Donna writhed out of his embrace, hopefully before the superhero driving it saw. “I know Dad… stop embarrassing me,” she laughed, ducking out of his arms. “I love you both.”

The crimson Dodge Viper screeched to a stop at the curb. The man behind it – tall, black, with a shaved head and a warm smile – took off his sunglasses and grinned over at her. “Hey!” he said, taking Donna in with a glance. “God you’re beautiful. Sorry… Pleased to meet you!” he said, opening the door and walking around while Donna blushed furiously. “I’m Marcus.”

Donna blushed harder. Did… did he think she didn’t know who he was? Lancer was a legend. He and his brother Thermal had been the ones to reseal the well in the gulf after the Deepwater Horizon disaster… they had blasted it shut from the surface. They had been two of the youngest recruits to the Dawnbringers since it had been founded to make it out of training and stay with the team. The two of them were among the most common Dawnbringers for people to see on the TV – they put in the most public appearances these days, since Baldur was usually too busy keeping the world from falling apart.

“I know,” Donna said lamely before holding out her own hand. “Donna.”

“Very, very pleased to meet you at last Donna,” he grinned. Instead of shaking her hand, he bent and kissed it, giving her a shit eating grin like he knew he was making her dad crazy. “I’ve been looking forward to this. Get in… I’ll take you to your new home.”

For a second, Donna considered opening a portal beneath her bag and depositing it into the backseat of the convertible rather than look ridiculous trying to lift it over the lip, but she didn’t want to look like she used her power for stupid, frivolous things, so instead she suffered through the process of getting it into the car. Marcus watched with obvious amusement, and Donna started blushing again.

“Should have just used a portal,” he said with a grin. “Moving stuff seems like what it’s good at, right?” He got into the car, and Donna felt like a fool, blushing yet again as she opened her own door and got in.

“Love you sweetheart!” Sam called out. “Call us soon!”

She turned to answer, but Marcus spoke first. “Don’t you worry pops. We’ll take great care of her for you. Promise.” Then he stepped on the gas and they raced off. Donna turned to look towards her dad, but a second later they were out of sight, leaving him behind.

——————————————————

Sunrise Tower was… ostentatious.

Located in the middle of Manhattan, the building was the new tallest in New York, catching every glittering ray of the sun as it struck the city. The top few floors, the headquarters of the superhero group that protected the world, was gilded in solid gold so it shone like a beacon in the bright light. If she hadn’t grown up with it, Donna might have considered it tacky.

She loved it.

The lower floors were a normal office building, one of the most expensive in the city, but the heroes didn’t need to deal with that… they were the reason its space was in so much demand. A man at the door took Marcus’ car for him, and hefting her bag like it was nothing, he lead her through the lobby to one huge, central elevator that shot them up into the sky fast enough to make it feel like her stomach was in her feet. Then it stopped, and she emerged into a place she had only seen on television before… the home of the Dawnbringers.

Tall ceilinged, it looked like an ancient temple of white marble, beautifully carved and built by master artisans. The floor was a rich red carpet that contrasted with the white and the gold, and everything just looked impossibly clean to Donna, impossibly fine. And sitting on the couch were a pair of superheros.

Mammoth lived up to his name… he was more than seven feet tall, and seemed as wide as two men side by side. Even sitting down he was nearly the same height as her. Sitting next to him on the couch was a man with skin unusually coarse and lined, someone she could immediately recognize as Gnarl… a man with the power to harden any part of his body stronger than steel. The two of them were just… sitting there, watching the television and relaxing. Donna shook her head, clearing the daze from it. Of course they were. They lived here. They lived here… and now so did she!

Until this moment, none of it had felt real to her.

“The new girl is here, Lucas,” he said as he dragged her bag in. “I ought to make you carry this,” he grumbled, glancing over at the huge hero.

He turned, focusing his gaze on Donna, and she blushed despite herself. “Welcome to the party!” Mammoth – Lucas – said with a grin. “Show her her room… I think Hellen finished getting it ready for her. I’ll let the big man know she’s here.”

“Right this way,” Marcus said, dropping her bag on the floor. “We can worry about that later,” he said with a grin. “Let me show you your accommodations.” He took her up a staircase of marbled stone, and turned down a hallway before stopping at the room all the way at the end. He opened the door and stepped inside, Donna following after. The room wasn’t much to look at… a mostly plain room with a few cabinets, a bed, an attached bathroom. It was actually smaller than her room at her parent’s house.

It was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

Donna skipped over to the lone window of her new room, putting her palms flat against its surface as she gazed outside. From here, normal skyscrapers looked like measly pillars jutting out of the earth! A privileged few of the more impressive high-rises achieved respectable altitudes. But none of them compared to Sunrise Tower. Their true neighbors were the clouds!

She felt like she had the world at her feet.

Spinning on her heels, a perplexed look crossed her face as she saw something that she had failed to notice upon entering. Flanking her door, there was posed a golem-like statue, seemingly composed of some like of ceramic or hard plastic. The thing was huge, the size of an upright gorilla… It sported hulking shoulder-muscles, simian arms, a humped backside, and a neckless head whose expression was as minimalistic as it was fiendish, eyes and mouths mere slits.

“What’s that?” she absentmindedly asked, pointing straight at it like a child.

Still grinning by the opened doorway, Marcus took a gander at the creature and almost performed a double-take, beholding it as something he had even forgot existed. “Oh those!” he exclaimed. “They are Savra’s Sentinels… she’s made a lot of them. They’re just guards… you know, in case of intruders, or an attack. They don’t see much action, as you might imagine.” He shrugged. “Since they normally don’t move or even show any signs of life at all, their existence tends to slip our minds. I even forgot to tell you about them.”

“I hope I’ll be able to sleep with one of those in my room,” Donna skittishly replied, trying not to show herself struck by its stature. The thing really did look quite terrifying.

“Oh you’ll learn to sleep with them just fine,” Marcus promised. “Savra has an entire legion of these things around here.” He chuckled lightly, like he’d just made a funny joke.

Donna lay one hand on the golem as she nodded, trying to get used to its presence. A legion of them…

Savra, real name Hellen, was truly a master of animation, the mass-deployment option for the Dawnbringers. Her power, as Donna understood it, was a thaumaturgic ability to bring inanimate objects to life. Donna pictured the woman in her mind’s eye, raven-haired and lithely built, standing in a black-and-green form-fitting outfit while overseeing her countless creations. She’d first come to people’s attention in the wake of the September 11th attacks, with a horde of metal and plastic and clay constructs rushing into the burning towers to drag out survivors. In journalistic reports she always wore such a reserved mien, as if stolidly concentrating on directing their movements. She was married to fellow superhero Puppet, who had the similar ability of constructing and spiritually possessing humanoid dolls that he used to battle against the super villains of the world. With army-makers like those two at their side, how could the Dawnbringers ever lose?

“Something wrong?” Marcus asked, walking over and cupping her chin so as to raise it upright. Without pausing, he then re-positioned both fists onto her shoulders, thumb-stroking the groves of her collarbone. Lancer’s ripped musculature didn’t look lacking in comparison with the brawny golem, nor did his towering stature.

“N-Nothing!” she chirped, giving off a nervous titter while waving away his hands. The youth scurried sidewards and hopped onto her mattress, twisting in mid-air so to land on her rump. “I’m just… excited, that’s all!”

The black man followed after her, his casual outgoing nature a bit daunting. It still felt so unreal for her to think of these metahumans as her potential colleges. A day ago she had been sitting behind a school desk, worshiping them from afar like everybody else, seeing them as the sort of icons that you put on golden pedestals. Now, she was going to be working alongside them. Did that make her a Dawnbringer? No… not yet. Oracle still had to accept her. The old man might not even do so… This could all have been just some grievous misunderstanding, the News-media having blown her powers out of proportions to get a good story…

Oh God! She hadn’t even thought about that. What if she was placed in front of the leader of the Dawnbringers, and the telekinetic took one good look at her and just laughed that she wasn’t the girl they were looking for before sending her packing back to home. Prickly nervousness started breaking out all across her skin, making it difficult to concentrate. This was the biggest moment of her life, what if she blew it?

Marcus arrived at her side, looming. Had he really just touched her chin and shoulders? Saito had barely registered the inappropriateness of the gesture. It seemed an odd thing to do even for someone as outgoing as him.

Just as Lancer seemed about to say something, a blonde beauty appeared in the doorway, leaning against its frame. Keeping her arms defensively folded, her icy blue gaze scanned the room, looking particularly nonplussed. Donna forgot completely about her woes… feeling abruptly starstruck as she gawked stupidly. Echo… that was Echo!

Outside of the twins and Baldur, Sarah – Echo – was one of the most well-advertised superheroes on the planet, chiefly due to her classical All-American good-looks. This media publicity didn’t always go over seamlessly though, since her amazing powers of precognition lent the southern beauty an almost indefinable air of haughty aloofness. Some speculated that due to this ability to foresee the near future and all its perils, Echo was actually the strongest member of the Dawnbringer, though the group itself publicly scoffed at such questions.

This perceived arrogance fused with her bombshell beauty gave Sarah the persona of a head-cheerleader, the girl at the top of the clique. Echo wasn’t Donna’s type, but she couldn’t deny that the woman simply radiated raw sex appeal. Voluminous locks cascaded down her highly curvaceous figure which presently lay encased in a tight blue outfit, its mixture of cerulean and azure creating a very eye-catching contrast with her sun-blonde mane. She never bothered to hide this inborn voluptuousness, her chest and hips swelling very generously on her statuesque frame, giving her some truly model-like proportions… just like some Amazonian heroine out of a legend.

The gorgeous woman took a gander at Donna, showing little emotion. Then her glacier-blue pupils cast themselves upon Lancer, moving back to Donna again, then back to Lancer. Echo broke out into a sudden laughter, guffawing so hard that her chest bobbed. “I’ll tell the others it’s almost time,” she told Lancer, swirling around and gliding off with such energy that her hair swayed in the air.

Donna blinked. “What was that all about?” she asked aloud, confused.

“Don’t bother yourself with Echo,” Marcus replied, sitting down and placing his big hand upon Donna’s bare knee. “Bother yourself with me.”

Donna observed that black fist with a look of complete incomprehensibility, not at all understanding what was going on. He started stroking it around, sliding downwards against the soft inner skin of her thigh, and then up towards her womanhood. The purple-haired girl bolted upright, holding out her hands in a defensive gesture. “Wait! I… I’m sorry,” she sputtered, embarrassed as hell. “I must have been sending the wrong signals! You’ve—”

He sprung off the bed like a panther, stalking towards her with a toothy grin. Placed on the back foot, Donna retreated until her back bumped against the rear wall, the expression on her face growing more ashamed and aghast the closer he got. The teenager flattened herself completely against the wall as he kept approaching, trying to prevent another touch for as long as possible.

“Thermal and I… we get a lot of female fans due to our publicity,” he said, voice deep as if trying to sound seductive. “That translates into a lot of horny groupies… and girl, you got the look of a prime limo-bouncer!” A sneer crossed his handsome face. “I knew you wanted some one-on-one time with me the moment I saw you,” he concluded, closing the distance between them. As her outstretched arms connected with his muscular abdomen, he pushed through so that they were folded by the elbow. They went body-to-body, Donna’s lithe frame utterly smothered by his overwhelming size and strength.

Donna felt frozen, feeling the warmth of his body radiating onto her, full-on goosebumps of horror breaking out on her skin at the touch. “D… Don’t. Please!” she peeped, so stunned that she was unable to push back despite the pounding of her heart.

“Don’t worry, I’ll invite Trevon over. He digs sexy goth-chicks like you. Don’t feel left out… you’ll get the both of us! After all, the two of us do everything together,” he said with a sneer. Hearing the often repeated media catch-phrase repeated to her in this context felt alien, wrong… unreal. Like this was some odd joke. It couldn’t be happening…

Marcus’s aggressive hands started exploring all over her body, streaking up-and-down virgin curves like a painter dragging his roller over a fresh canvas. He was most interested in molesting her breasts where they pushed out from her chest, groping them greedily through the fabric of her thin shirt while keeping her body pinned. Growing more excited, one hand dropped down to her hips and started wedging itself against the flattened swellings of her rear, wishing to cup that supple ass-cheek and give it a proper squeeze. Donna still felt frozen, shocked… she could barely push back against his arm, and when she did the hero only fought harder to get the handhold. An abrupt urge to scream filled Donna. She had never been touched in any of these intimate places before… not even by Em. She attempted to unleash the bellow, yet the horror running through her body left her so paralyzed that the cry seemed stuck in her vocal-cords. It was as if she was losing control of herself… She didn’t know what to do! Oh God why didn’t he stop!?

“C’mon!” he grunted, growing ever more forceful. “Spread your legs” he added, forcing a knee between them so to separate her thighs. “I hope you have a tight cunt, girl…”

“Niiaaaah!” the teen finally uttered, her wall-affixed body erupting into spasms.

“Lancer! What the hell are you doing!?” an astonished yet clearly outraged voice called from the hallway.

Donna heard the thunder of his footsteps before them man himself appeared. Her liberator stormed in like a blast of air, Marcus tumbling off her as if tackled by a linebacker. There was a confusion of wrestling as the man grappled to subdue her molester, pushing Marcus towards the floor so that the black man broke off and scrambled away to his feet.

“It’s cool, man! It’s cool!” Marcus rapidly babbled. “She wanted it! I don’t know why she started crying, I did nothing wrong!” The large man kept his palms upraised as her savior, a man even larger than him, kept hounding after him. Lancer received a shove towards the door than sent him violently colliding against its frame, spinning as he exited the apartment. He kept pleading his innocence while retreating down that hallway.

“Get out Lancer! Stay in the lobby until I come for you!” her savior yelled furiously after him, standing by the threshold. The man turned, facing Donna. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

She… was hurt. Her knees had almost buckled and her stomach was so nauseated that she felt forced to clutch it with both hands or risk it falling. Still, a ray of hope felt like it had fallen on the crestfallen teenager’s visage. It was him! He had come for her! Her rescuer was no other than Baldur himself!

“Let’s get you on the bed,” Baldur stated when she failed to respond, walking up to her and easily hefting the lithe teenager off the ground. Donna allowed herself to be carried and sat down gingerly upon its mattress, feeling like someone saved from a burning building. It wasn’t the introduction to her idol she would have chosen. Grasping her shoulder in a familial gesture, he sat down beside her while inspecting the girl like a delicate vase to make sure nothing was broken. “I’m so sorry that you had to experience that. God, I can’t believe what came over Lancer! He usually has so many girls around tha—” Baldur gabbed.

Donna sobbed. She was hurt… yet now everything was alright. She couldn’t believe that it had happened either. Lancer seemed so fun-loving and approachable when he was on TV. The thought of him being such a… such a… a rapist… It just seemed unreal. It all seemed imaginary, like the muddled memories of a terrifying nightmare. Yet, she already sensed that she was in a safe place and that she was going to come through this bad experience in one piece. It had been a close call, but… because of Baldur, it wasn’t. She leaned her head against his shoulder, sobbing while supporting herself on his unbelievable gallantry.

He was a true hero.

Baldur’s hand left her shoulder, wrapping itself around her backside instead. “So… you didn’t answer his question. Your cunt still tight?”

Donna frowned, her chin jerking upright. What had he said? “W- What?”

“I asked… is your cunt tight, girl?”

Wide-eyed, her neck yanked to the side so to behold him head… and what she saw slashed jagged daggers through Donna’s already damaged heart. The man in front of her was not Baldur, not the Baldur she had seen in a hundred videos and TV special. This thing was but a facsimile, a cruel and twisted version of her beloved hero. His baby-blue pupils had somehow turned into psychopathic crystals that displayed no humanity, glaring predatory at her while his head bobbed lightly in a soundless cackle. A wide grin ran from ear-to-ear, toothy and mocking like a deranged joker. It was the look of an unrepentant sadist with complete contempt for her very being. Under that gaze, Donna felt like a mouse trapped in a snake’s shadow.

“Did you really think I was going to care about my friend feeling-up some insipid Ant?” he questioned, the muted laughter suddenly ringing out in high derision.

Donna’s soul plummeted beneath her feet. She felt empty like a void. For just a single second longer, she felt frozen… then some reptilian instinct in her brain began pulsing. She was in danger… more danger than she had ever been in. Somehow, she knew that it was flee or die.

Leaping, she flew halfway across the room before Baldur managed to clasp her ankle. She crashed into the ground and sprawled, clawing at the ground as she attempted to crawl away. She gazed back at the huge man, astonished. “You still haven’t told me if your cunt is tight or not, Ant!” he snarled, rising upright as he licked his lips. “I think I’m going to have to find out myself. Bitch, you’re going to be wishing that I just let Marcus rape you instead,” he said, starting a one-handed fidget with his belt-buckle.

Donna opened a portal beneath her to the other side of the room, dropping through and emerging out by the window to the side, back on her feet instantly. The sudden drop disoriented Baldur enough for him to unhand his grip in mid-flight. Momentarily freed, her nerves pumped in an overpowering urge to flee. She had chosen the window because it was the first thing to come into her mind. The musclebound blonde hero seemed more bemused than anything, cocking one eyebrow. He reached for her, and Donna dropped another portal beneath her feet — making her fall into the hallway instead.

Positioned within that passage, she grasped frantically for some avenue of escape. She had waypoints set up back home, but they were all too small for her to step through herself… just ones to grab tools or supplies. Once she got out of here, she swore to herself she would never, ever make that mistake again… she’d always have a bolt hole or two set up as a waypoint. It didn’t help her now, though… she needed to think through the problem, not think about what she should have done better.

They were on the top floor. They were way too high up for her to simply teleport to ground-level. She could leave the building and drop, but without some preparation that would just get her killed. The elevator… it was the only way down. She needed to make it there, then she was free. But which way was it? This place that had seemed so grand just minutes suddenly felt huge and disorienting. As she looked around frantically, she abruptly spotted Echo leaning against a doorway, watching her.

“Help! I’m being attacked by…” she began to shout, life-long instincts spurring her to call for the aid of superheroes when in trouble. Then she realized that she was speaking to Echo. And was being persued by Baldur. And she was inside Sunrise Tower. Their home.

They were all in on it. All the Dawnbringers were after her!

The blonde giggled upon witnessing deep dismay set itself upon Donna’s visage, like a tourist observing a show. “Having fun yet darling?” she asked.

Baldur came smashing through the wall, his unbelievable strength scattering masonry and marble like a freight train had just come plowing through. The purple-haired teen sheltered her face with both forearms, lowering it only to see Andrew Ericsson’s gloating visage. He looked like a frenzied bloodhound reveling in the hunt. “I’m gonna get that sweet teenage cunt around my cock…” he snarled, right as Saito zipped away through another aperture her power had opened. “And fighting for it will only make it swe-”

The portal closing cut off his words. Donna emerged back into the lobby. It’s vast spaciousness and vaulted ceiling now only inspiring menace and foreboding. The impeccable cleanness and regal decor were mere veils for a hidden evil. She was in a villain’s lair.

Casting her gaze towards the elevator, the young woman’s heart nearly imploded. Its double-doors were opened yet inside that square-shaped box stood Mammoth, waiting lazily with arms folded across his burly chest, his immensity almost filling its entire space. It would be impossible for her to teleport there and not end up in his clasp. This was a disaster! She had nowhere to flee!

Laughter was directed at her from many different directions. Lancer and Thermal lounged by the sumptuous sofa which Mammoth had previously occupied. One of those nearly identical twins beamed an shit-eating grin. That one was Marcus. He was mirthful over having her fooled. The set-up with him and Baldur had just been some kind of mocking, callous trick to torment her… that much was obvious now. Gnarl leaned against the nearby wall with the television, a big smirk on his face. In their opposite direction stood the couple of Savra and Puppet. The man himself wasn’t present, merely represented by one of his life-like, redhaired dolls that had been imbued with his spirit. He stood a head taller than his demure wife, the raven-haired woman being the only one who was merely chuckling instead of cackling.

Lastly, she gazed towards the hallway-adjacent stairway from where she had arrived. A wiry-built Japanese man stood by its lowest step, greeting her as scornfully as everybody else. His real name was Akira, but he was better known by his superhero nomenclature Shinra. The man possessed mastery over gravity and its pull, being able to push things towards or away from him with incredible force.

This was half of the Dawnbringer line-up, half of her icons! They had all rendezvoused here in this lobby just to have her cornered. But why!? These people were heroes! Members of the Dawnbringer, some of whom had been members back when Baldur and Oracle and the others had finally brought down Midnight’s reign of terror! Why were they after her!? The uncertainty of these answers tossed gasoline onto the flames of her panic.

“Looks like we’ve caught ourselves a little superheroine impostor!” the voice of Baldur cried out, emerging at the topmost part of the stairway alongside Echo. “Did you really think we were going to take you in for stopping a couple of cops from helping themselves to some back-alley floozies?”

Trapped like a rat in a box, Donna assumed a two-fisted fighting-stance, her martial tutelage under her father finally kicking in. Now she had no chance but to physically defend herself. Even if it was Baldur she was battling. “Why are you doing this!” she pleaded.

“I’ve already told you!” he replied, laughing. “I want that Ant pussy!”

Leaping off the stairway at her, Baldur’s fall turned into controlled flight right at her midway down. Rocketing towards her with both fists raised, the fighting instincts that her father had worked so hard to drill into her screamed that there was an opening. Spinning, Donna delivered a thunderous wheel kick straight onto his incoming jaw… and she send herself flying backward backwards from the impact, stumbling to regain her footing on an abruptly aching foot. That kick would have been enough to stun a rampaging bull.

Baldur just stood there, setting down on his feet. “Ouch, that hurt,” he joked, tauntingly scratching his chin.

Pale-faced with fear, Donna realized how foolish this was… who she was fighting. Of course it didn’t hurt him! He was the strongest of all the Dawnbringers! He was invincible. Cold mortality begun to set itself into the marrow of her bones. She couldn’t give up! Activating a way point towards her supplies, she pulled a staff out from the the pink ring.

“Oh, look out boys, she has a weapon,” Lancer snickered from the side where he was watching the show.

Narrowing her eyes, she circled, called up a few portals, and went to work. Glowing waypoints appeared at all of the man’s weak points, blind spots, pressure points. She sent punches and kicks and strikes with the haft or end of the staff through them directed at his kneecaps, the back of his skull, his belows, his throat, the tail of his spine. All of them he either effortlessly dodged or absorbed while appearing smugly unaffected. Striking his skin was like landing blows on a mountain! Then a rounded portal popped into existence between his legs and a sidekick flew through aimed at the groin… which he clasped around the shin and squeezed so hard that Donna screamed.

“Naughty naughty!” he exclaimed. With her limb gripped, he could have done nearly anything he wanted with her… instead, he just let her go and let her pull back her aching leg. When she retracted it through the portal, it was it was so numb that she could barely place it on the floor. He was playing with her. He could end this any time he wanted. This man who claimed to be Baldur merely wanted her to suffer and grow ever-more desperate.

And as much as it terrified her, it pissed Donna off.

His eyes, she decided. Was any part of him less invincible than the others? She would have to find out. Creating another duo of interconnected portals, her pointed fingers slammed through the them yet was likewise caught before reaching its intended target. She immediately withdrew, managing to yank her entire limb out of the waypoint, but this time Baldur was still holding on! His clutching hand had followed through the egress alongside her extremity — jutting outwards on her end by the joint of the elbow — effectively existing in two different points of space at once.

The man grinned maniacally, looking like someone trying to pull a mouse through a crack in the wall, not realizing what trouble he was in. Donna had been granted her winning opportunity… if she were but to close her portal, then his entrapped limb would assuredly be severed! She had tried the trick on steel rods and they were chopped in twine like twigs. But… she had never done it to a person, before. Closing that portal would involve maiming someone, crippling the most legendary hero of all time and most likely resulting in his death by blood loss. She had never considered using her power on another person like that before… the mental hurdles of needing to kill a man scuffled within her conscience.

Could she really do it?

“Get your cunt over here, Ant!” he cried, trying to haul her through the portal.

Shutting her eyes, Donna closed her portal.

The supernatural opening’s shimmering edges enclosed around him like a butcher’s cleaver. The rims slashed his bulging thews and then… stopped! Instead of hearing the sounds of sliced meat and spurting arteries, the terrified girl heard something more like to a scalding frizzle, like a fully-blasting welding-torch being directed at some ultra-resistant material. Opening her eyes, she looked on with horror to find her deathtrap foiled. The portal had not cloven Baldur’s arm as she had been expecting… instead, it had stopped when it hit the limb. A faint golden glow was glimmering against the top of his skin, holding back that rupture in space-time. Donna recognized the glow for what it was, an immense expenditure of whatever power he projected from himself as a weapon… and it was strong enough to fight back her powers like they were nothing.

Her stomach did a flip.

“You stupid bitch! You thought you could kill me? I am invincible!” he snarled, one lonesome sweat-drop streaking down his forehead the only sign of any strain at all… and incredible energy poured from him, the power that made him a god among men emerging from his cells to forced her portal further open despite Donna’s best efforts to make it close. For the first time, she really felt like an Ant.

When it was large enough, Ericksson started pulling, hauling the teenager through on his side. The teenager went through the waypoints kicking and screaming, panicking as she emerged next to him. A quick gut-punch buckled her legs. A knee absolutely floored her. Baldur rubbed his elbow, grimacing as if the area stung. That was the most she had done… annoy him. She hadn’t even left a mark. “Bitch,” he growled.

A groggy Donna attempted to crawl, still on her hands and knees. Somehow, she made it several meters away from him. Then he jumped over her figure, feet stomping down in front of her head. She yelped and sprawled around, heading off in the opposite direction.

An blanketing invisible force suddenly pinned Donna onto the ground, splayed out like a flatted frog about to be cut open. The wiry Japanese man stepped forward, holding out his palm in an eagle-grip so to direct his gravitational energy. It was as if some heavy piece of furniture lay over her entire person. Immobilized, Baldur ambled up to her, placing the sole of his boot onto her ass… but he wasn’t even looking at her. He was glaring at Shinra. “Did I ask for your help?” he spat. “You think I need help with a bug like this?”

Shinra held up his hands in surrender. “Course not,” he said. “Just having fun.”

The pressure promptly vanished. Saito sprawled like an animal, managing to turn belly-up before his hands were upon her. Baldur held her down, grinning as he did so. In her terror, Donna attempted to lift him off her… It was utterly useless. She might as well be trying to lift a house. Then it dawned on her… he just did this to watch her struggle. It was merely amusement to him. His arms were industrial vises and she could never escape while they remained clasped. Defeated and forlorn, she ceased struggling, instead starting to cry at the desperate futility of her quest.

All the Dawnbringers gathered around them, mocking her with gloating faces. The sole exception was Mammoth. The mountain of a man retreated to his sofa, seemingly utterly disinterested in what was transpiring.

“P-Please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t… ra… rap…” she managed to whisper, trying to close her legs… but the huge man pinned one of them beneath one of his feet.

“Pussy always feels the best when you have to work for it,” Baldur exclaimed, unzipping his pants. “Don’t you guys think so too?”

There came mild chuckles, even from the women. Thermal and Lancer crouched down, stretching out lone fingers whose tips started blazing like miniature torches. These they dragged all over Donna’s figure, severing clothes in twine wherever they went. The youth was quickly being rendered naked, protected only by rags. “NOOO!” she screamed as her idol tore them off, leaving her butt-naked upon the smooth marble. Instantly, ravenous eyes fell upon her pussy-mound and breasts, wishing to inspect what they looked like. Her entire skin inflamed with acute humiliation. The longer this went on the more she came to understand how evil they were. She was just some callous source of entertainment for them. These so-called protectors were nothing but lecherous predators.

“Taut and supple, just like a teenager should be!” Puppet commented.

“Better than I would have expected,” Gnarl exclaimed. “Out of a cock-starved dyke.”

“Is she really a rag muncher?” Thermal asked.

“Says here she is,” Echo replied, her southern drawl lazy. She had procured a file from somewhere and was flipping through it. “Had a girlfriend and everything. But it also says that she’s most definitively a virgin! Jesus, Andrew. I think you’re about to leave a gigantic impression on her!” she chuckled.

The youth’s skin bristled. How had they gathered all that information about her? They knew all about her… how thoroughly had they planned all of this?

“That’s just what I wanted. A pristine pussy just for me!” Baldur answered, shuffling and push so to uncover his bare crotch while still holding her against the floor.

Donna went bug-eyed as she saw what he had uncovered. Protruding between his muscular thighs was a humongous flesh-club… That still semi-dormant manhood was already the size of her forearm! Its vastness left her terrified, a hollow fear that made her delicate womanhood ache just as the thought of it. Re-positioning himself between her knees, he reached for her pubic-mound. Saito’s heart nearly exploded upon feeling her velvety vaginal-folds grasped by male fingers and pulled apart.

“Cherry Ant girl… How sweet of you to save it just for me!” Andrew taunted, casually jerking his cock to full-blooded hardness. “I guess I’ll have to cure this would-be heroine of her teenage lesbianism! If one man can do it, then it’s me!”

“Nooowhohoho!” Donna voraciously wailed as Baldur placed his engorged dick against her innocence, fidgeting his hips into position on-top of her loins. The tiny, natural barrier was now all that protected her depths from that cruel, thick rod. Even though she had known she was gay since she was about twelve, Donna had more than once imagined that her hero, Baldur, might be the one man she might be willing to sleep with… that she wouldn’t find the idea of him disgusting. Never once had she imagined it anything like this. She had always thought her first time would be with Emily. Sensing that fearsome knob-shaped bigness push against her quim, a new sense of apprehension overcame her. The size-disparity between their reproductive organs was so dramatic that Donna had no idea how he could possibly make it fit. She would have done anything, anything in the entire world, to have his length away from her at any cost.

“Please, I beg of you!” she earnestly pleaded. “Not like this. Don’t do this… I don’t… I don’t want to lose my virginity like this!” Tears streaked down her frightened face.

“You dumb Ant whore!” Baldur growled. “I’m about to grant you the highest honor you could ever be bestowed! Get ready for some superhero cock!” Then he sealed her fate by slamming his hips forward.

Donna wailed out a pitched scream as she was penetrated, tremendous pain engulfing her abruptly overstuffed pussy. He had rammed his massive rod right through her, uncaring about her natural tightness and how much taking a woman like that would hurt a normal man – the invincible Baldur just brute-forced his entry into her with one powerful thrust. Thoroughly impaled, the freshly deflowered girl already felt like she was going to be split in two, his big tool jutting into her! Baldur’s toughened cockhead had savagely collided with her cervix and was unyieldingly pressing down against that tender opening. Pushing harder, he ground his rod and her raped quim together as if wanting to skewer her womb, causing the inexperienced virgin immense amounts of agony.

“Y-You’re killin-meee-guuaahhh!!! she protested, choking on her woes, face so contorted that it was nothing but lines. Her lamentations did not mitigate his pressure one bit as she pushed against his arms, punching at him. She tried kicking at his legs, she even punched him across the face… he didn’t react to any of it. He just pushed into her so forcefully that the veins in his mighty thews bulged.

“Take that you fucking bitch!” Baldur snarled in-between clenched teeth, unleashing a longwinded gasp and then starting to pump his hips instead. With a pussy-punishing rhythm established, he craned his head back and yelled “God, I love correcting teenage lesbian cunts!”

Donna’s furrowed, silken vagina had become a nexus of pain. He jabbed and plunged his dick into that recently opened pit, ass bobbing up and down atop her gash to buffet her repeatedly. The teen’s blossoming body absorbed every brutal thrust, becoming a punching-bag for his cock that suffered abuse after abuse for his pleasure. Baldur groaned while he pummeled her, brows stiffened as if experiencing a vast amount of bliss. “Fuck this pussy is hugging me so tight! It’s trying to squeeze my dick to death whenever I thrust in! Yeah, this bitch is loving this!” he informed his comrades.

“Typical Ant,” Echo jeered, fidgeting with a few locks of her hair.

The lie couldn’t have been larger. Donna wasn’t enjoying this at all. With her pussy-tunnel utterly unlubed, mere muscle-power was all that was driving his cock inward. She was effectively being bashed against the floor over and over, the energy bearing down on her far exceeding even the pin she had felt Shinra’s power put her beneath. He had destroyed her virginity and was now bulldozing her vaginal innards… and yet the most painful part of it all was that it was Baldur doing it. Her hero! The man she had looked up to most! Donna had ardently believer in heroism, in valor, in the good-heartedness of these people. Now all of that was being raped away by Andrew Ericson, deadening her very soul as his roughly humping crotch kept pounding into her.

“Shit! This hoe is so tight… I’m going to cum in this slut!” the herculean man quipped, his brawny cock caught in the hot friction of her tight sex. Grimacing intensely, Saito heard the very thing she desperately wished to avoid. He was going to… his dick was going to explode inside her! It wasn’t enough that he had smashed her dreams and robbed away her virginity, he was now also going to turn her pussy into a swamp with his disgusting, virile seed.

“Please, god, no!” she begged as she kept reaching for him… grabbing at his neck, at his eyes, at his ear. Nothing. He barely needed to notice. It was like running her fingertips over stainless steel.

With her twat blazing as if rubbed by sandpaper, Baldur hilted himself completely, conjoining them as snugly as possible. In that intimately locked-up state, he grunted in pleasure as she felt his balls contracting against her body… and then in one white-hot moment of anguish and despair, Donna felt her rapist’s sperm flood into her, that conquering seed splurging against her delicate womanhood and rendering it sullied. Experiencing Baldur’s seamen within her was like some sort of epiphany of horror, making her gape as if eliciting soundless screams.

“Hahaha! Shit that was quicker than usual for you Andrew!” Lancer exclaimed. “We’ve caught ourselves a natural cock-sleeve, then! This Ant-bitch is going to be a real entertaining toy. I can’t wait to teach her some new tricks.”

“That’s what you Ants get for trying to steal the spotlight away from real heroes,” Echo scoffed, sounding like she really believed that Donna deserved it. What was the matter with these people!?

With his pleasure-spasms ended and his cock finally still inside her, Baldur unceremoniously pulled out. Behind him, he left a sordid and gooey mess. Those abused cunt-walls were yawning obscenely open and had been rendered absolutely viscid with cloudy-white jizz. Donna’s womanhood didn’t enclose fully even after he exited, remaining frozen in the contours of his cock as if thoroughly traumatized by its presence.

“Well, that was great!” the blonde man commented, rising upright and scratching his junk. “Well worth the trouble we had to go through to get her here. Who wants to be next? Time to teach this Ant her new place in life…”

Donna couldn’t believe that those words had come from the lips of her idol. This whole episode stung the adolescent like a pierced heart. It felt unreal. She wished it to be unreal. How could the Dawnbringers to this to her!? She was so hurt, so strung, that she was slow to let his words sink it. Slowly, she realized that, no matter how horrible this experience had been, that it was merely the beginning of what was to come. Baldur hadn’t tricked her here just to be violated once… he was already passing her off to the next on of her heroes.

As the Dawnbringers jeered and bantered between themselves, a far door opened in the spacious lobby. Footsteps approached the group. Gazing through the colonnade of legs surrounding her, Donna discerned that this new arrival was male and carrying a big briefcase.

“Just when we needed you, Doc!” Baldur exclaimed.

Doc dropped his luggage, going down on one knee while unlocking it, Donna looking at him with hopeless eyes without bothering to lift her head. If the others weren’t going to help her… he certainly wasn’t. Vladimir, best known by the Alias Doc, hadn’t always been a hero. He was a paroled, and supposedly, reformed, supervillain who had spent the last decade with the Dawnbringers by serving as their quartermaster and medic. His real expertise was that of a scientific mastermind, having invented many of the gadgets that the superheroes equipped themselves with. Middle-aged and bespeckled with dark lenses whose rims were perfectly rounded, Donna became abruptly sure that he wasn’t nearly as reformed as the media, and the Dawnbringers, claimed he was.

While fidgeting with the content of his case, the Russian scientist glanced over at her, smiling coldly. “This new Ant looks so youthful and spry. Good. I can already tell that she’ll last longer than the other ones.”

“Just give her the knock-up drugs. The birth-control pill or whatever it’s called. I left quite a virile mess within that cooch,” Baldur callously remarked.

“Good thinking, Andrew,” Savra chuckled. “We don’t want poor Doc to have to give another Ant an full-on abortion because of you.”

“You talking about the redhead?” Thermal said with a chuckle. “Nah, that kid would have been black as night. All mine! Or… maybe Lancer’s…”

“The pill can come later,” Doc replied stepping over to her as Donna’s guts knotted deepening terror. Another Ant? So… she wasn’t the first one they had lured into Sunrise Tower and raped? She had never heard anything about anything like that… it had never made the internet or the news… what had happened to her? The ease with which they conversed about these previous victims disconcerted her deeply. Despite her nerves being absolutely frazzled with trauma, her skin crawled at these horrid implications. She had heard about none of this! No missing reports in relation to Sunrise Tower. No rumored recruits that vanished into thin air. They had all been covered up! The Dawnbringers had been violating women like her for an extended period of time and not a soul knew a thing about it!

This meant… it meant that there was no chance that the police were going to come for her. Even her parents wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong until the weeks began to drag. She was all alone in here. Donna was on her own.

Then, just as Donna was opening her mouth to give voice to her concerns, Echo laughed. The blonde clairvoyant was looking right at her, giggling as if she had just read her mind. “Poor little Ant has no idea why she’s here. Baldur, why don’t you tell her?” she said.

The musclebound man grinned wolfishly at having been given the opportunity. “It’s real simple, actually. The previous Ant we had around here, eh… well, lets just say she wasn’t any use to us anymore and leave it at that. Then you appeared on TV, acting like a real superhero when you’re in fact nothing but a pathetic wannabe. There is nothing that galls me more than watching fakers like you take credit away from the achievements of actual superheroes like us. Don’t you know that we put our life on the line? Don’t you know that we’re the only thing holding back chaos? My first thought was just to have you crippled or make you… vanish… but you’re actually kind of sexy. I figured that having you bounce on my cock a few times would be the perfect cure for your haughtiness! And since the position of the tower whore had just been vacated, me and Michael decided to put you to use doing the one thing insects like you were meant to do — serving your betters!” He laughed darkly. “You should thank me, really. As I mentioned, riding my dick is the highest honor an Ant like you could ever aim for!”

Donna grew nauseated, turning ill in the spirit. What had she just heard? Not only were the Dawnbringers a bunch of reprobate villains… they had picked her for a petty reason like that? Lust and wounded pride? She hadn’t even wanted the media-attention for saving Kiera and Chelsey from those crooked cops! Why should she have to be raped and tortured for a stupid reason like that!?

“Here’s the collar,” Doc said, fetching such a piece from his briefcase. The metal circlet was studded with tiny rocks that Saito knew to be Animite, a metal that had the property of negating metahuman powers. The government controlled access to the metal careful, but obviously the Dawnbringers would have some to subdue and imprison villains. She had never imagined that they would use it in situations like these.

“Later,” Baldur said. “Her portals could be entertaining. For now, let’s just have old-fashioned fun.”

“Later then,” Vladimir replied, placing it back down. Instead, the scientist pulled out two riding crops that were folded like expandable batons. “I assume you ladies want the honors?” he said, handing the two instruments to Echo and Savra who accepted them gladly.

“What do you say about a few practice swings?” Hellen questioned.

“Sure,” Sarah replied. “Shinra, won’t you?”

The Japanese man extended his hand, his gravitational stranglehold once again suppressing Donna flat against the floor. The weight became so overwhelming that she could barely breath. Towering above her, those uniformed women smirked while raising their instruments high. Fear enveloped the floorbound teen. Swinging their whips as if serving with racquetballs, those leather-tips impacted upon the youth’s skin. The instinct to scream overwhelmed her, yet her lungs were so squeezed that the sound came out like a pathetic groan. All the male Dawnbringers laughed as blow upon blow rained down on her, covering her figure in blazing areas of pain. Savra and Echo took their time in getting down their swings right. After she had been trashed far worse than ever on the sparring-floor, the two woman ceased striking, panting lightly and stroking their foreheads.

“Yes I’ll think that’ll do. Thank you, Shinra,” the blonde said.

His channeled gravity dissipated. She was suddenly able to move again.

“On your knees,” Baldur ordered.

Still wracked with anguish both mental and physical, the purple-haired girl failed to obey quickly enough. Andrew reached down and grasped one of Donna’s three circular piercing decorating her left eyebrow, gripping it and using the leverage to lift her upwards. She shrieked while being forced to trail the thug, ending up on her knees with her face leveled to their crotches. “I’ve had it with your bitchiness! We should be Gods to powerless freaks like yourself! And from now on you’re going to be treating us accordingly!” Baldur roared at her. Thronging closer, all male members of the Dawnbringers started undoing their flies, leering smugly. “And what better way is there for a dumb Ant to learn her new place in life than providing her Gods with sloppy blowjobs!?” Baldur declared, his compatriots cackling. “This is how we induct Ants into the ranks! You better leave behind that virgin shyness fast or you’re not going to be surviving here for long!”

“I’m first!” Shinra exclaimed, unleashing his hardened erection.

“Better do what he says, Ant,” Echo threatened, fingering the flattened end of her crop.

In a move of aggression, the Japanese man grasped her hair by the scalp yanked Saito face-first into his hairy crotch. Upon making contact with that smelly ballsac, her visage became tainted with its filthy gunk. After a nasty rub-down that made her mind race, he pulled her backwards and started callously slapping his knobby dick-glans against her cheeks. To be facially humiliated by that stinking manhood felt utterly unreal, worse than she could ever have imagined. The sadist’s eyes were gloating as he did it, beholding her as if she was some worthless subhuman thing. “Open up!” he loudly demanded.

Eying that thickened column of meat, Donna reached some sort of breaking-point. Learning the true colors of the Dawnbringers — her childhood heroes — filled her with pure fatalistic hatred. These were no heroes but the worst villains of her nightmares. People like them shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Donna suddenly didn’t care what the consequences were going to be… any heroine that was worthy of wanting to be wouldn’t let them do this! The moment he put that thing in her mouth, she was going to bite his cock right off. Slowly, she opened her mouth.

“Seems the stupid Ant thinks she wants to bite your dick off, Akira,” Echo stated, voice perfectly calm.

Panicking, Donna lunged forward, snapping her teeth down… but Shinra promptly yanked her head back, making her miss him entirely.

All around her Dawnbringers laughed. Donna was stunned. “Do you honestly think that you’re the first one to try that trick, bitch?” Lancer snarled.

“Give it to her, girls!” Baldur hollered.

The duo of whip-heads impacted upon her buttocks, pounding those fleshy mounds like drums! Both Echo and Savra unleashed a barrage of punishing lashes for her impudence, putting their elbows into every swing. She was struck until the pain become so overwhelming that she had to shriek. When she instinctively tried to get away, Shinra kept her posture steady by grip of her scalp. Her entire posterior was left blistering when they ultimately ceased.

“You seem to forget, darling… I know everything you’re going to do before you do,” Echo announced, flexing her crop. “I can read you like an open book.”

Immensely dispirited, Donna felt her soul plummeting while the villains chortled in amusement. She had forgotten all about the heroine’s renowned precognition. How could she possibly deal with that?

Becoming impatient, Shinra strong-armed her mouth onto his hard-on, making the lips and prong sordidly kiss. It didn’t take long until she was compelled to chug-down the first dick in her young life. That stiffened pole penetrated so forcefully that it bumped against the opening of her throat. Despite gags and choking-sounds, Akira began aggressively hammering in his engorged manhood, using her skull as a mere socket to slam his dick into. Just housing that offensive rod inside her body was horrifying, having it protrude unwillingly into her throat was unbearably awful.

Suffering through the oral discomfort, all the adolescent could think off was how powerless she was to hurt him. Donna could not even fight back with her teeth. The urge to bite was there… but she knew that it wouldn’t work. Worse, she knew that she didn’t have the courage to try again… if she did, the moment the thought occurred to her, Echo would have already warned him. It seemed too absurd and too hopeless to be true. Never had she encountered a situation like this. As Shinra kept up his furious thrusting, in pathetic desperation Saito decided to give it another try, trying not to think about it before she acted, hoping that the spontaneity of her decision would leave Echo helpless.

Hands tightened on her black hair and yanked her off the cock. Saito’s teeth clenched just as her mouth slid off his fleshy rod. “Nuh-uh!” the blonde announced, holding her head and chuckling. “You are a slow learner, darling.”

For her disobedience, the two blackhearted women flagellated her supple tits with full-on brutal strokes. Her sensitive tits were utterly unable to take their impacts. They doubled-down on the punishment this time, whipping until the pain blotted out her thoughts.

Baldur snorted and shook his head. “Dumb bitch.”

“All Ants are. Pain is the best discipline for them,” Doc replied, speaking as if he was quoting a scientific truth.

“Hey bitch. Why don’t you try that trick on me? Echo won’t intervene. I promise!” the blonde man abruptly injected.

The kneebound girl was stunned. His protruding rod pushed incessantly against her face, wanting to get swallowed. There was obviously some ploy behind this. Having no other option, she took the rigid phallus that her stolen away her virginity past her lips. Traces of those seminal fluids were still sullying his pole, coercing her to taste the remainder of her hymen. His repulsive member filled her completely. Andrew hadn’t activated his powers. He appeared completely defenseless. What was he planning?

“Snug and wet, just like her cunt!” Ericksson brashly hollered, humping her forehead.

Donna gagged miserably as his cock pushed against the entrance of her throat completely, over and over as he scrubbed the remnants of her virginity onto her tongue. And then she bit. Echo did nothing at all… she just stood there. The girl’s teeth snapped down, and then there was a crackling pain filling her jaw like she ahd just bit down on an iron bar. She winced with stinging agony all over her gums. Biting into Baldur’s dick was like trying to chew on a rock. His power reserve had activated automatically. Had she chomped down with much more vigor, her teeth would undoubtedly have been broken off as he kept ramming his way into her!

“That’s why the media says that I was born invincible!” he bragged. “I don’t have to do anything, you silly bitch. You could try it in my sleep and it wouldn’t work. If I’m ever attacked, it will activate even without my cognizance. It’s like a reflex, really. I can’t be killed or even hurt in battle.”

Her miserable gagging on his dick was just more amusement for the metahuman gang that had captured her. Andrew took the opportunity to orally violate her some more, beaming in the security of his immortality. From there on, Donna’s head was passed around like a cigarette. She got to suck on the dicks of Vladimir, Lancer, Thermal, Gnarl, and Puppet… even though his body was artificial and could emit no seed. Whenever she failed to show enough enthusiasm or slowed down in her bobbing, the women would make sure she was beaten. They all cracked jokes about what a worthless hussy she was as it was transpiring, delighting in her disgrace. Saito had become too worn down to show any kind of attitude or resistance, which only intensified their mockery. They would just not relent. This went beyond a couple of bad characters who wanted their perverse libidos appeased. They were all full-on sadists.

Not that long ago — Donna had never even held a dick inside her mouth. She found them repulsive, their stiff jutting obscene and unbecoming to the senses. Now she had tasted a whole assortment of them. White. Asian. Black. Artificial. She could physically feel herself being made smutty, tawdrily cheapened. It was downright crushing to any sense of self-respect Donna had left. More than once, she seriously pondered on making another attempt to bite these loathsome men’s dick off. Every time they stroked against the opening of her gullet the instinct flared up inside her mind. They were all so abhorrent that the very marrow of her bones screamed out to try it. Yet she decided against it, knowing that she was helpless as long as Echo’s precognition was in effect. The teen really did not wish to endure another bout of whip-torture. Strangely, the blonde never once commented on her violent impulses, merely overlooking the oral-rape as it remained in effect.

“I think we need to go harder on this bitch! She isn’t learning with any passion!” Gnarl declared.

Baldur laughed and assumed control of her well-traveled head. “Hey bitch! From now on, breathing is a privilege, not a right! And you’re going to earn that privilege by choking on my sausage! Let’s open up another virgin cave for my dick to explore!”

With her glutes and udders still stinging from lingering welts, the girl was forced to provide fellatio to the man who she had once considered her idol. Andrew’s dong was so broad-headed that she had to gape just to fit it inside. Despite their unwieldy size, he wanted deeper than any of them had ever gone before, aiming to clog-up her windpipe. Her clenching, velvety gorge was invaded and her throat burned as he brute-forced his erection through that snug gullet. Bumping against his pelvis, she was held there by pure muscle-power alone. It felt both revolting and agonizing having that thick tube jut stolidly into her throat, doubly so since it was the very pole that had defiled her innocence. The unwanted intrusion also irritated the teenager’s sensitive gag reflexes somewhat fiercely, causing her to emit obscene belching-noises and drool out copious amounts of spittle. She could not breath while being plugged like this. Eventually, the hero started sawing his hips back and forth, making the liquid nastiness come spilling out like tiny rivulets as his movement interrupted the seal of her lips.

“Do you have the dog bowl, Vladimir?” Echo asked.

“Certainly, Madam!” he replied, pausing his masturbation to procure the basin from his briefcase. Handing it to Sarah, the blonde placed it in-between Donna’s legs. Torrents of spittle and phlegm were being splattered down into that general area, filling up the bowl.

“I don’t believe in messes, darling. Any disgusting slime that you spit up will end up back on your insipid face!” Echo warned like a stern taskmaster. “Gosh you lesbians disgust me! Pretending to like women and then slobbering over the first male shlong that comes your way! Such hypocrisy is why you are just a measly Ant while me and Savra are real flesh-and-blood superheroes!” She paused, considering. “And by the way, try not to make too big a mess of it… that bowl is where you’ll be eating from during your stay!” she said, finishing with a scornful laugh. Already a small puddle of unseemly saliva had formed within that basin.

“C’mon bitch! Sing me a song!” Baldur hissed while steadily power-ramming his dick into her gullet, listening to those strangled and inarticulate noises being emitted. The steady tempo was designed to maximize her throat’s struggles, flipping the metahuman’s airflow ON and OFF like a switch that gave him pleasure. It was terrible on her lungs and gag reflex. Mucus-filled saliva filled her mouth pathetically, turning Donna’s chin into a sordid waterfall. Free-falling glop piled up inside that dog-bowl. There would be plenty of it to rinse Donna’s face with afterwards.

“Guugg!! Gruuugg!! Eeeuuggh!” she squelchy groaned, each exit barely granting her enough time to refill her lungs. The physical stress this caused made her entire oral passageway hurt as if it were frying.

“You feel that?” Baldur snarled between clinching teeth. “That’s the power of life or death! I could kill you just by having you choke on my dick! It would be a fitting end for an worthless Ant whore!” he added, pulling out completely and backhanding her reddened cheeks multiple times in a primal display of ownership.

“Hey let me try!” Lancer injected, assuming control of Donna’s noggin while she gasped frantically for precious oxygen. The African-American aligned his bulbous cockhead with her panting mouth, intending a vicious invasion! The hapless sex-slave was in no condition to get deep-throated. Yet she had no choice. She really didn’t want to endure another bout of whip-torture.

Lancer’s black dick went into her. It was time to jostle with the pecker she had denied earlier in her would-be apartment. Donna resigned herself to the inevitability of it all.

“STOP MARCUS, SHE’S GONNA BITE!” Echo abruptly exclaimed, jumping forwards and palm-striking Saito’s head out-of-position. The close-call caused a major scuffle, Lancer’s hips shooting away like a sprawling wrestler. Everyone was stunned.

“What!? No I wasn’t going to—” Donna rapidly protested, utterly perplexed. She hadn’t even considered the possibility.

As the surprise receded, anger rose. Not once during the display had Echo’s warnings been so urgent. As far as the others were concerned, this lowly Ant had almost succeeded in grievously injuring one of their own. Lancer himself was absolutely infuriated. The musclebound man’s entire figure became engulfed in pulse-pounding fury, beyond any desire for self-control. Going wide-eyed and baring teeth like a predator, the man grasped Donna’s temples in a double-handed deathclutch. “You fucking Ant! You think you were going to castrate me!? Bitch I’ll make you wish you were never born!” he blared like a god of war as he looked down at her pathetic, slime-covered face.

Mortally frightened, Saito had no time to figure out how this could have possibly happened. Marcus activated his immense power-pool, an azure glow emerging around his chiseled frame, just as it had done for Baldur. With one big pull, the athlete face-slammed her onto his rigid pole, burying it crotch-deep. Donna’s throat instantly became so thoroughly impaled that the windpipe bulged outward in ophidian contours. His clinching fists kept pushing, flattening her nose against those bushy pubes and making her visage hurt. Caught in an abject panic, the girl placed palms flat against his stone-hard thighs and shoved, failing to move even an inch. A few strands of spittle was sluggishly ejected past her lips, yet nothing else came in or out. It didn’t take long for Donna’s beleaguered gullet to make garroting noises, protestations scrambled by that air-tight fit. Her face went flush like a tomato, fresh tears streaking from her mismatched eyes. The vengeful man was going to keep her oral tunnel plugged until she asphyxiated!

“G… Gg… Grrg…” Donna irregularly voiced, her eyelids fluttering violently over bloodshot eyes. The burn within her starved lungs was becoming so overwhelming that her mind raced with alarm. It made her lose absolute control of her faculties. Even frenzied like an animal there was nothing she could do to stop this. Brought to death’s door, the girl started slipping out of consciousness. Killing darkness crackled at the edges of her vision… but despite her abject misery and humiliation, she fought it as long as possible. What a way to end… Donna Saito, young super hero, strangled to death on a cock for an offense she hadn’t committed or even been planning to commit!

Uttering a mighty pleasure-roar, Lancer unclasped her skull. Immediately, Donna’s head shot off his cock like a popped cork. She fell over backward, her head banging against the marble with an explosion of pain as she hit the floor. Her freshly liberated airway vomited forth a whole slew of nasty throat-slime in mid-trajectory. The mess kept jettisoning out of her gaping mouth as she started panting, instinctual desperate to recover and survive! It had been such a close call that she had felt the embrace of the reaper just before Lancer had let go of her!

“Nice shot, man!” Baldur boyishly cheered, the others laughing.

Lungs pumping at superhuman speed, precious life rekindled itself inside the lithe teen. She took such forceful inhales that it sounded like she dryly ululated. What she had just experienced was the trauma of nearly being killed. What’s more, Marcus didn’t even seem to have intended the timing at all. To the Dawnbringers, she was just a expendable form of entertainment. Her life was a plaything to them.

Then abruptly, she couldn’t breath anymore. Donna wheezed as Echo knelt on top of her, knee on her belly. The blonde’s knee was positioned perfectly so that it sank right into Donna’s diaphragm, preventing her lungs from puffing. She was getting choked by way of her stomach, that soft area underneath her solar plexus compressed like a crater. It was the most unusual sort of agony, especially when coupled with her nearly depleted breath… and worst of all, it had to be difficult… she must have practiced doing just this! It made her legs start to kick and flail in woe, utterly unable to get the heroine off her.

“Remember what Baldur said, darling… Breathing is a privilege! And I’m not sure you’ve earned it! Especially after just having tried to castrate my friend!” Sarah exclaimed, posing like a victorious Amazon while denying the Ant what she wanted, needed, the most.

“I didn—” she protested breathlessly, her words barely reaching her own ears, much less those of the other Dawnbringers. “I wasn’t going to bite hi—”

Smiling, the gorgeous woman leaned in. Her maniacal blue eyes were also next to Donna’s before she whispered, so quietly that even Donna could barely hear her. “I know that, darling,” she said, smiling right against her ear. “I know… but I was getting bored with the boys not hurting you badly enough, so I told a little fib. You understand, right?”

Donna’s pupils expanded in cold shock upon learning the truth. She attempted to scream yet the strangulation had pulverized her vocal-cords. In desperation, she tried pushing back against the heroine’s oppressive knee, yet was so enfeebled that she could not generate even an iota of strength. Sarah remained triumphantly posted, drawing cat-calls and wolf-whistles from the other Dawnbringers so to edge her on.

“Keep choking her!” yelled Thermal. “After all she’s a dyke and an Ant! Being dominated by you is probably her wet dream!”

Limbs shuddering, the horrifying drowsiness of being near-comatose returned to Donna’s mind. Somehow, Echo knew the exact microsecond to let go before she floated off into oblivion. Haggardly gasping, the girl was left to wallow on the borderline of deadly asphyxiation.

“I never knew you could choke someone like that!” Shinra said.

Echo smiled over at him. “Thats because you boys always think so straight forward,” she flicked her hair with a tiny smirk.

Shinra laughed. “Seems useful. Let me try…”

Directing his gravitational weight like a lance, Akira bore down squarely upon that diaphragmatic sweet-spot. It worked like a charm. Once again, Donna felt her air cut of… But unlike Echo, he settled for tapping instead of pressing, creating a constant disturbance of Donna’s vital airflow. The sensation was excruciating, like a fist constantly punching down at her. Ripples went out to the teenager’s limbs, making those powerless extremities start flopping and shuddering about. The faster he tapped the more vigorously she spasmed, all of the Dawnbringers being tremendously bemused and wishing to see how chaotic her convulsions could become. It was beginning to look like Donna was being electrocuted. Suffering through unbearable bouts of breathlessness, she was left in an abjectly deplorable state, both tormented physically and extremely humiliated.

Echo, meanwhile, used her foot to stealthily push the saliva-ridden bowl a bit closer to Donna’s groin. She considered a second, then adjusted its position slightly to the side.

Then, while writhing, Saito lost complete control of her bladder. Gathered heroes begun to hoot and holler in delight as streams of yellow piss emerged from her crotch. It splashed out into the bowl, amalgamating with the residing spittle already there. Initially, the beam was scattershot and wild due to Shinra’s incessant tapping. But as he too was consumed with laughter, the gravitational manipulations ended and her waste-water became a steady jet. Still, Donna could do nothing to stop the outflow, intensely embarrassing herself in front of her tormentors.

“What a miserable hoe!” Lancer snarled. “That’s what she gets for trying to take my cock to her grave!”

“Pissing herself on her very first day. This is why you don’t allow Ant’s to do a Superhero jobs!” Gnarl remarked.

“Bitch needs to be housebroken!” Savra chided.

As her public urination at last mercifully stopped, the teenager was left taking only puny breaths. Her throat had been rubbed so raw that it scorched as if it were infected. She could barely think, she was so destroyed. Three of the Dawnbringers walked over, surrounding her head while stroking their erect peckers. Baldur, Shinra and Doc gazed down at her with leering faces. The prodigious distress projecting from her own didn’t give them pause for second thoughts at all.

“Remember guys. This will be her first facial. Let’s make it a memorable one!” the Dawnbringer’s frontman snarled.

The trio crouched, bringing their stiffened prongs close to her downed noggin. She could do nothing but watch them pump those shafts, flush-faced and grimacing, her black and purple locks in a disheveled state. Already an ignoble mess, she was going to be further befuddled by their hot virile seed. This culminating marking of property was merely ceremonial… they had already made her their bitch.

Long ropes of creamy semen were blasted onto the teenager’s countenance, christening her formally into a new life of sexual slavery. They came for every direction, decorating her entire visage. Saito could feel how they landed based on stickiness and heat. Many ended up partly in her semi-opened mouth, giving her an introduction to the flavor of testicular-gunk. Even with that, there was still enough to paint her reddened face sperm-white. Through all her life, Donna had never foreseen that she might one day be giving up an undignified facial to the people she once viewed as paladins.

“Ahh… now that’s what I call sufficient hazing,” Baldur remarked, rising and walking away.

Wearing a mask of pearly jizz, the adolescent still struggled to regain her breath. She was allowed to lay there for several minutes, absorbing the heat and texture of those ejaculated wads. After a while, she heard the clacking of heels. Echo walked up to her head, holding that bowl filled with all manner of repulsive liquids… including, she noticed, nearly all of her own piss. The woman had managed to catch nearly all of it.

Without comment, that basin was upended over her visage. Its content splashed onto her face, drenching her in a mixture of piss and spit. The deluge did its job of rinsing away the sperm, forming a dark-yellow tide which unstuck even the stickiest of adhesives. It was humiliating in the extreme, one-hundred percentage dehumanizing, to experience the refuse of her bladder wash over her comely countenance. Some of it even seeped past her lips, making her sputter at the salty tang.

“Next time you try something like that, we’ll make you drink it straight from the basin!” Echo said, keeping up the lie.

Donna was utterly dismayed.

“Don’t think I’m done with you yet, bitch!” Lancer hollered.

Booming footsteps approached her. Grasped by the hair, Donna’s dazed head was lifted roughly upwards, a big black hand slapping her face several times over. These were real open-palmed thuds, scrambling the metahuman’s brain while it tried to retain oxygen.

His twin treaded over as well, looming above her with fists clenched and lips pursed tightly in anger. Huge and musclebound, they absolutely dwarfed the teen in bulk. She couldn’t help but be substantially intimidated by their heavyweight stature.

“If you’re fucking with my brother, then you’re fucking with me as well!” Thermal snarled, leaning in and disdainfully spitting her right between the eyes.

“You’re going to pay for trying to bite my dick off!” Marcus continued. “You think these guys emptying their balls on your stupid face was the finish-line? Nah, bitch! That was merely the prelims! You’re in the main-event now! You’re going to be dealing with me and Thermal at the same time! Get ready for some 2-on-1 action!”

The other Dawnbringers chuckled at the brother’s boisterous performance. The duo started shedding clothes at a frantic speed, uncovering physiques that looked to be carved out of solid titanium. Each sported a monstrous hard-ons, those stolidly jutting dongs surpassing the girth of Saito’s forearms. Donna’s worry increased tenfold upon remembering how big Lancer’s flesh-pole had felt within her throat. The thought of being fucked by the two of them simultaneously made her fear for her life.

She briefly considered exposing Echo’s manipulations in order to save herself… but the youth realized it was of no use. There was no way they were going to believe her over Echo. It would only stoke their ire further. Fully nude, Thermal reached down and clasped her by the wrist, the girl feeling herself uplifted onto her knees as if she was featherlight.

“I have an idea about what to do with this hoe!” Marcus loudly blurted. “If you thought that my black shlong wasn’t good enough for you, then I have something else for you to suck on!”

The African-American promptly spun around, bending forward at the waist so to project his beefy posterior towards Donna’s face. Reaching back with both hands, he clasped those sculptured cheeks, pulling them apart so to expose the deep cranny where his crinkly asshole resided. Made to gaze headlong at another human foul shitter, Donna made the expression of a supremely startled feline. The anus had been uncovered before her so quickly that she could not believe it. She leaned away.

The standing hero clasping her skull like one would a common football, assuming full control of its direction, his hand huge compared to her head. “Ready to beg forgiveness from my brother, bitch?” he acrimoniously inquired.

“What are you going to do with me?” Donna blurted. “Please. Please, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—” she rapidly pleaded, mouth working swifter than her thoughts could arrive.

“Listen up, Ant! You’re going to earn your forgiveness by making out with my brother’s butt, you hear? You’re going to place those pouty teenage lips of yours against his shitter and kiss as if you were cuddling with your precious girlfriend! I want to hear him squealing like a pig in joy or you’re not getting out!” Trevor barked.

His declaration birthed an abundance of perverse guffawing. Horrified beyond comprehension, Donna tried tearing her face away, a fraction of her rebelliousness quickly kindled back to life by the horror of what was coming. Thermal shoved her face-first into that lewdly unveiled ass-crack, projecting her like a dribbled ball. Every discernible feature of her fetching face disappeared amids that chocolate ass-flesh. Saito had been screaming as the swing started, her cry comically muffled in mid-bellow when her noggin impacted upon the Dawnbringer’s plus-sized derriere. Now she was merely a neck jutting into someone else’s posterior!

The ass and visage were compressing snugly together. The purple-haired adolescent was getting choked again! But this time it wasn’t a manhood plugging her windtunnel. It was a filthy asshole smothering against the openings of her nostrils and mouth! Trying to pull back, Trevor’s strong hand held her firm. Lancer remained posted like a statue, stolidly projecting his behind against her no matter how hard his brother pushed.

“Lick it, whore! Rim that crevice with your Ant tongue! Show my brother that you’re sorry!” Thermal hollered. “Bitch, you’re worth less than the crap that comes out of there!”

Forcefully planted against that recipient rump, Donna was exposed to every nasty smell and curling ass-hair that resided within its valley. She could physically feel that clenched shitter pressing intimately against her enclosed mouth. The utterly obscene connection between delicate lips and vile rear froze her senses. Soon, her stomach was churning with a sickening sensation. The teen was about ready to throw up, her concepts of sanitation and hygienic grossly overburdened. Remaining uncooperative, Thermal started using her head to rub up-and-down against his brother’s crack, stimulating it via a thorough brushing. Once again, impending asphyxiation started changing the tenor of Donna’s thoughts to abject desperation.

“C’mon bitch! Brown nose him! Us superheroes want to know that we have the worship of you insects! We save the world on a daily basis, remember? Now show your appreciation!” he pressed.

“Look at this whore,” Echo tittered. “She’s going to choke to death on an ass right after having survived choking to death on a dick. What a poetic way to go. At least for a slut, anyway.”

The absurdity of that situation triggered something within Saito’s mind. She had to survive. They were placing her through the grinder, submitting her to disgrace after disgrace, not caring if she would live through it or not. It was up to her to make sure that she made it out of here alive, no matter the cost. Still absolutely repulsed by that wrinkly shithole oppressing her, Donna parted her mouth and allowed her tongue to slither out and stroke against that unclean crevice.

“Uuuuggghhh!” He moaned on pleasure. “There she goes. That is just the respect I’ve wanted all along! We should have gone straight to this in your room and maybe you wouldn’t have rejected me!” Lancer exclaimed after a long-winded moan, his mien slovenly loosening at the pleasure of being rimmed by a female.

The teenager’s pink muscle dashed and stroked against the uncouth aperture, digging into its fleshy embrace. There were many hypersensitive nerves around that tawdry sphincter which served to coax and galvanize his perverse libido. That jutting black prong made several twitches, jerking whenever Donna went especially deep or stroked especially hard against his rectum.

The more oxygen-starved she became, the more frenzied her lapping turned. Donna quickly came to regret submitting so late as the burning pressure within her lungs made her vastly perturbed. Retaining focus, the youth remained completely dedicated to tossing a good salad. She had to make up for her supposed disrespect of planning to have his cock dismembered, or die. This was a position she had never imagined herself in. Making love to man’s asshole… and doing so with the franticness of a sloppy dog!

“Jesus…” Marcus wheezed, leering ear-to-ear. “I think she loves me, bro! She’s downright french kissing my ass! I’m not sure she’s ever given her girlfriend this passionate a kiss!”

The identical twin yanked her off, Donna instantaneously gasped an enormous lungful of air. That sudden whoosh was emphatically audible. Gazing back at that repugnant anus, the adolescent found its wrinkly surface absolutely smudged and glistening with her spittle. Several strands of tacky saliva bridged her panting lips with that puckered shitter. Witnessing the aftermath of her ignominious labor wrenched at the tattered remnants of her self-respect.

“Now that’s how you apologize!” Baldur exclaimed, laughing heartily.

“Who provides the best kisses? My brother’s anus or your girlfriend Emma!? Answer!” Trevor roared.

Donna sobbed… but she felt like she had no resistance left. She knew what they wanted her to say… wasn’t that better than being suffocated again? “Y-Your brother’s butt… His ass kisses me more romantically than anyone ever has! I… I’m in love with your brother’s butthole! I love it so much! Much more than Emma I swear!” she fervently replied, overcome with sobs. The taste of his ass still lingered on her tongue. The blazing disgust filling her up was so utterly humiliating. Even though saying so disparaged her even further, Donna had come to realize that she had to play the role of trollop in order to survive.

“Damn straight!” Thermal yelled. “Now give him a big kiss to prove it!”

Allowed to move on her own, Donna hesitantly leaned forward and planted a pouty-lipped love-tap onto that spit-slicked sphincter, displaying her subservience.

“Glad to see that you’ve found your equal, Ant!” Echo laughed.

Marcus stood back upright, turning around. “You think this bitch gets off from being degraded?”

“I bet. She’s a total hoe, bro. If we ever did accept her into the Dawnbringers, she’d probably just spend all her time sucking dicks and licking ass anyways. That’s why you can’t have Ants in our group. They’re all subhuman scum. Worse than the villains we hunt,” his twin narrated. “Ain’t that right, bitch?”

“Y-yes,” she whimpered.

He spat at her again. Donna accepted the fatty gob of froth straight on her forehead without comment.

“I think its time the two of us became a couple, slut!” Marcus said. “Catch up from when good-guy Baldur rudely interrupted. I could tell that you actually wanted my dick in your cooch! That bite thing was just playing hard to get! Man you were so wet I could feel it through your clothing!” he obscenely snarled.

The black man laid himself flat on the ground, his dick jutting skywards like a flag. Snapping his fingers at her, he pointed towards that proud pole. “Get working, bitch! You’re not a virgin anymore! You no longer have an excuse to be coy about taking meaty dicks up your hooker-hole!”

Thermal’s big hands landed on her shoulders, raising her upright and then guiding her to stand above his crotch, both feet positioned on opposite sides of his hips. From there, he applied downward pressure, making her squat over that rigid hard-on. A weakening twinge of trepidation went through her loins as that saluting dickhead roughly collided against her cunt.

“C’mon! Straddle his cock you dumb whore!” Trevor vehemently demanded. “I want to see you take it in one go!”

Still suffering from her traumatic deflowering, Donna was in no mood to take another dick up her tender clam… especially one as freakishly large as the twin’s. Her timidity earned her no respite, however… it got her nothing but a slam downward from Thermal. The lurch utterly stuffed her canal with rigid salami, causing her sore vaginal-lips to be spread incredibly wide. The sudden insertion drew a big scream out of her vocal-cords, thighs shuddering as her womanhood became abruptly occupied.

Seated upon his hips, Donna looked like a petite pale doll that had been interlocked with his massive black crotch. He immediately grasped her ribcage just below her perky tits so to attain a measure of control. The girl frowned deeply and bit down on her lip to keep from screaming again at the feeling of getting unwillingly impaled for a second time today. It was disconcerting, but at least this position offered more comfort than being held down and savagely raped like Baldur had done. Despite the hurt, she figured she could make it through this.

The man inside her laughed. “Hasn’t our relationship changed, Ant? A refusal, a castration-attempt, and now you’re riding my mudsnake like a whorish cowgirl!” Lancer jeered.

Thermal squatted behind her, clasping her svelte hips with one hand. The move made her jolt and crane her neck around. “What are you doing!?”

She received her answer when his steel-hard cockhead pressed against her asshole. Her eyes widened, face falling as she realizing his intentions, cold jitters sparkling up and down her spine. He was going to take her backdoor while his brother was inside her twat. Donna had never even considered the possibility of having sex like that before. It seemed to her like something that only interested perverted people.

Exactly the kind she was now captured by.

“You forget our tagline, whore!” he shouted in reply. “We do everything together! Including fucking up Ants like yourself! Congratulations bitch, you’re going to get DP’d by the two most famous celebrity-heroes in the world! And as an extra bonus, you’re going to get your anal-cherry popped at the same time!”

“Niiooo-OOOOO!!!” she howled, the loudness of her dismay greatly amplified when tremendous cock, exactly the match of the one already impaling her, pressed against her rear and shoved. Thermal wanted instant penetration, but her rear proved resisting and unwilling to open for him. With Marcus’s gigantic dick already stretching her pussy-tunnel to incredible dimensions, practically straining the enveloping membrane, there was simply was no free-space for his prong to expand into… so her asshole remained defiant and inaccessible.

Her ass’s stubbornness failed to dissuade him, however. The strong superhero kept pushing and probing, doggedly insistent on getting his erogenous man-meat into her butt. That ebony pole bowed and bent repeatedly as it sought entry into her rear, trying over and over to brute-force his way in… and to Donna absolutely horror, he was starting to make progress. Over time, Trevor started intuiting the correct way to push to force her body to yield. Donna soon felt her sphincter slowly opening up like a flower, coaxed to widen by the intense pressure it was under. Trapped between these clinching black bodies of the two celebrity heroes, she could do nothing as they jostled to achieve their favored double-penetration.

“Here I come, slut!” he yelled out… and then thrust with everything he had.

Donna bellowed in bitter agony as Thermal ruthlessly introduced his hard-on into her guts, an explosion of anguish consuming her mind. He didn’t pause for a second, either… he instantly began fighting to achieve maximum penetration, mauling through those fleshy innards with his meat-spear. The swift entrance somehow made her devastated shriek even louder, her face a mask of agony. Since she was immobilized by their vastly superior muscle-power, she could not escape his plunge. Trevor managed to bulldoze her rectum until their hips collided with a meaty thwack, and Donna knew both brothers had managed to fill her holes completely… She was a meat filled cock-sleeve now.

“Oooohhh shit!” Trevor called out, his masculine outburst audible even over Donna’s outcry. “The constrictions of her slut-hole feels great! It squeezes like an anaconda! She’s trying to pulverize my dick!” he added, holding onto her loins as if experiencing a risk of being buckled off.

Sandwiched between them, Donna underwent an unparalleled level of physical anguish. She could practically feel those jutting logs pulsing against each other inside her, competing for living-space. Her orifices were way too tiny to contain them concurrently… and yet, her pain was the source of their ecstasy. The tighter she was, the more pleasure each brother received. Vaguely, she remembered times the twins had boasted about their sexual prowess through thinly-veiled metaphors and jokes during media interviews. As a teenager idolizing them, she had thought nothing of it… but now the once so idealistic girl was the target of their attentions and wished she’d questioned it more then.

Commandingly, both Abyssian Adonises started sawing their hips, initiating the beginnings of a grueling double fuck that Donna already knew would leave her praying for death. The two brothers moved in perfect unison, making sure that Donna would never have to contend with merely one of them inside her. Getting tag-teamed felt consummately abhorrent, as if her cavities were suffering to see which could be battered the most. The raped teenager had no idea how those flesh-rods managed to stay stiff and unyielding while enduring the compression within her. Soldiering through her virginal tightness, they drew bliss from the immense traction garnered inside those tiny confines. Having only been subjected to one good dicking which came due to rape, the lithely-built adolescent was in no shape or form ready to take these hulking prongs in tandem.

They didn’t care. She was going to suffer them anyway.

Donna wailed, unable to comprehend why her nether-regions hadn’t torn in twain. Lancer and Thermal had established a steady tempo, puffing and groaning as they slammed into her orifices. Her body was their sex-toy now. Just something for them to plow into. Something to hurt for their pleasure. The Aberrant’s first threesome had all the makings of a very traumatic memory that would be with her for life.

“Go you guys!” Echo yelled, hopping and clapping like a cheerleader in excitement at the show. “Don’t forget that you’re fucking to teach this Ant some respect! Make sure that the Ant bitch never tries to bite off another superhero dick again! Don’t slow down! This goth-slut is such a blockhead that she’ll never learn unless you really lay it into her!”

“Yeah! And fuck the dyke right out of her too while you’re at it!” Shinra added.

“Better fuck harder, Lancer! I think the dyke is trying to tell us that she prefers my cock!” Baldur jeered.

“Kill the fucking Ant!” Savra savagely intoned.

All this uproarious encouragement made the brothers bring out their A-game. They raped the teen without gentleness or mercy. Their athletic lurches caused a lot of beefy impacts, hips colliding against Saito’s bubbly buttocks and groin like bludgeons. While they screwed, the self-declared rockstars called her every dirty name in the book, as if trying to up their gamesmanship or psyche her out. Either way, their colossal black dicks became snugly crusted with pleasurable tightness, even while they were in the process of savagely hammering asunder said firmness.

It was like the two were waging a sexual war against her, and Donna’s beleaguered body was besieged. Her upper body would flail and shake about as they thudded into her, jerking like a rag-doll put to the battering-test. Even within the frisson of sexual violence she couldn’t forget the immensity of this betrayal. Once she had thought these men genuine champions of goodness. Now, first-hand experiences taught her that they were ruthless rapists. They were, in fact, much worse than the crocked cops she had rescued Amara from. They had the world at their feet — the adoration of billions — yet still, they wantonly raped young heroines like her just for sport.

“Gonna bust your ass! Gonna bust your ass!” Thermal repeated.

“Ughhh! My ball-soup is going to cure your pussy lust, whore! You’ll never want another dyke again after tasting it!” Lancer snarled.

Donna was too far gone to respond, her mouth offering merely an escapade of inarticulate grunting. Every strand of hair on her black-and-purple mane had been set aswirl by their pounding. The two twins briefly high-fived at what a sexualized mess they had turned her into. Destroying her was just a game to them. Her tormented body felt no pleasure at all, just pain born from the distortion of her body. They were going to have an orgasm and she was going to have a mental collapse. Her first double fucking had made sure that she wouldn’t even be able to look at the brothers again without being thoroughly traumatized by its memory, consumed by the vastness of her shame and ignominy.

Having fucked as one, they would also cum as one. Marcus and Trevor groaned as they reached their climactic endpoint, slamming in and jettisoning their seed with matchless synchronicity. Both buried themselves balls-deep as they did the deed, Donna’s resulting high-pitched shriek managing to eclipse both of their masculine pleasure-roars. Hot viscid seamen spurted into her body like torqued-up hoses, the gunk flooding through both her uterus and rectum. She could do nothing but lay in that deplorable position and feel their man-seed terrorize her innards. This two-pronged attack had left Donna absolutely wiped out, too pained and exhausted to feel like she could even move. All that she could feel was her tender nether-holes stinging from the abuse they had endured, even while that jizz poured into her.

“That’ll teach you to respect Superhero dick, Ant!” Lancer yelled, his voice booming as if coming through a loud-speaker.

As the hectic pummeling finally ended, Donna’s mind ceased reeling, her distraught visage glistening with warm and salty perspiration. Her comedown was like entering a nightmare-world of humiliation and shame. Being raped made her feel worthless, cheap and irreparably tainted — lucidity only amplifying all of these horrible impressions. Saito bore the gravity of her extreme disparagement fully, wondering if she could ever live a normal day in her life after a defilement like this.

“Yup. That’s the expression of an Ant-slut who has just survived her first threesome. They all take it so roughly,” Echo assessed.

“What should we do with her now?” Savra asked.

Echo shrugged. “Her portals should be good for some fun party-tricks,” the blonde replied. “I think Marcus and Trevor have taught her a lesson in not trying to pull something underhanded… and I wouldn’t let her get away with it anyway.”

“You have anything in mind?” Baldur asked.

Echo grinned. “Yeah. A few ideas. Just a couple, really…

***

Descending from an internal elevator within Sunrise Tower, the Superhero known as Oracle left his private quarters and stepped into the lobby of the headquarters. A fit sixty, he dressed sharply and formally, looking like the wise and august president that the world-media portrayed him as. Cold eyes scanned the empty marble, picking up on the subtle signs of scuffle laying here and there. The new Ant had arrived and been the subject of another party. Instinct told Michael that he was about an hour too late to catch it.

No matter. He was here now. Oracle started walking again, his steps light and casual, letting the dignified man drifting through the vast space like a ghost.

Heading for a corner, he happened upon the aftermath of a sordid sexshow. Facing the wall, a portal was activated, buzzing lightly as it connected to some unknown destination. Before it, a naked female body was kneeling and sticking her waist through the ripple in space-time. The halfway-entry effectively dismembered her body.

Tacky coagulated semen had been ejaculated on her thighs, buttocks and pubic-mound, that womanhood and ass having evidently seen abundant usage. Her abused vagina still remained stuffed, a thick dildo having been lodged inside the girl’s cum-splattered twat-canal and was throbbing about with vigorous power. The phallus was one of Savra’s many creations. It could vibrate much more forcefully when brought to life with her animation-abilities than any battery-driven toy. That activity made the body-severed girl shuddered lightly, though she made no move to reach back and try to pull it out. They must have already taught her better than that.

Many of his pupils had scribbled their autographs on her hindquarters alongside insults decrying the virtue of her character. Whip-welts also decorated those pale mounds liberally. They had obviously had a lot of fun here before moving on.

Oracle kept walking.

“Boss!” Mammoth exclaimed, the lethargic giant seeming to come to life as the leader of the Dawnbringers approached him. The lazy behemoth was doing what he always did, relaxing on the couch, but this time he had a footstool. Before him, two shimmering portals were set-up. The girl’s naked torso jutted betwixt them, shoulders, head and nether-regions vanishing into the ether. The mighty-thewed man was resting one of his legs atop her backside. It was clear that she struggled with the weight, her spine being slightly arched, like a table crackling under its burden. Creative uses his pupils had found for an Ant. He approved.

“Where are the others?” Oracle asked, voice almost imperceptibly disquieting, as if carrying no inflection.

“They’re all in the new Ant’s prison-cell. Last room in the hallway. Her head is there as well,” the laconic man answered.

Despite being a giant, he never showed much attention or initiative. In character, Mammoth resembled a sloth more than his bestial namesake. When he did explode, though, he was a juggernaut that not even Baldur could stop. Some powers were more than they seemed… Mammoth was more than strong. His power had something to do with momentum… he was almost literally unstoppable once in motion. And speaking of that… “Anything new or special that has come to light about the Ant?” Oracle pried. “Anything worthwhile?”

“No,” Mammoth said. “As useless as you said.”

“What about that?” he asked, indicating the portals.

“Echo’s idea,” Mammoth replied, hefting his leg just slightly and allowing it to fall back down again. The backside trembled by that manipulation of heaviness. She looked about ready to collapse to Oracle. “She has her uses,” the giant added, offering a rare value-judgment.

Oracle nodded to his underling, whose poise turned to ease as the Commander switched directions and marched away towards the staircase. Ascending it and entering the hallway, he allowed jeers and laughter to guide him towards an open doorway. Arriving at its threshold, he gazed inside without announcing his arrival.

The small room was crowded. The Ant herself was protruding through a portal via her arms and shoulders, breast-mounds halfway cut through the rift in space. Dried sperm-wads sullied her cheeks and chin as she was busy orally toiling on one of Puppet’s dolls. Though the life-like figurine could not ejaculate, Savra clung to the creature’s side with horse-whip in hand and was lashing Donna whenever her fellatio didn’t prove inventive or passionate enough. The sex-slave’s lips were bobbing speedily on that salient shaft, tongue twirling and whirling as she worked. It was strenuous blowjob-training, beads of sweat running down the teenager’s forehead as she struggled to keep up with the heroine’s high demands.

On the opposite end of the room, they had placed the girl’s luggage on the bed, busying themselves by rummaging through it like hyenas. Half of its content was already scattered upon the floor, clothing and underwear that would prove pointless in her new profession as their whore.

“Look at this!” Akira exclaimed, digging through some corner and then triumphantly upholding his hand. “A vibrator! Haha! It looks like our little lesbian doesn’t have all the luck with the girls!”

“Throw it away. Savra’s toys are much better!” Gnarl remarked.

“Besides, she’s no dyke anymore… this girl is a genuine cock-slut now that she’s had my dick up her twat!” Marcus exclaimed. “Ain’t that right, hoe?”

“Yes! Yes I’m a dumb cock-whore! I dumb, love cock!” Donna frantically blurted out before quickly resuming her sword-swallowing routine. It was obvious to Michael that the pressure had worn on her sanity. He smirked at that.

Oracle stepped inside, his footsteps barely audible. Echo was leaning against one of Savra’s sentinels by the doorway, arms interlaced. Spotting him, she did a double-take, then smiled before she loudly proclaimed “Officer on deck!” She followed it up a second later by striking a playful salute.

All heads turned. The Dawnbringers became attentive. His entry mollified their raucus cheer a little.

“Hey sensei!” Baldur cheered, stepping forth. “You’re here to check up on the new Ant?”

“Just to lay my eyes on her,” he said softly. “I was busy communicating with Nox and Proteus. Their mission will take some time longer.”

The room was silent as he walked up to her, Savra and Puppet clearing the pathway. Donna had seldom seen pictures of Oracle taken in recent years, despite his longstanding position as the Dawnbringer leader. The man himself was… strange. He exuded something alien. Something Donna suspected the other Dawnbringers were unable to notice. It was a… cold malevolent intensity — like the force of a gale blotted out by the walls of a bunker. As his gaze slanted downward to peer at her directly, Donna abruptly felt like an arachnophobe who had just come face-to-face with a gargantuan spider. It was inhuman. Her skin turned clammy and cold. She fought to suppress violent shakes. She could swear that he was savoring the look of fear on her face — despite moving not a muscle, even his pupils emoting nothing.

“She won’t be stealing any glory from us anymore!” Baldur said with a big grin, looking like a schoolboy who sought the approval of his tutor. “I can’t believe that these Ants have the gall to think that they’re one of us.”

“Here’s something that you might want to see, Michael,” Doc injected. The man had retrieved something from her luggage and was moving over to show it to Oracle.

It was a picture. Donna had only brought one. The one of her parents.

His blue eyes shifted so to look at it, gazing intensely, and then fixed on Donna again. She could take nothing from that gaze at all, decipher no emotion of thought… but somehow, she thought that the sight of their happily smiling faces had been like fuel to his internal fires.

“This Ant is fun for a lot of tricks. Watch! Hey Ant, jack me off!” Baldur said, even while she was too far away from him to do that.

Saito worked on opening another portal that connected next to his groin. Three was the maximum amount that she could keep open with minimum concentration. Yet she had been so physically exhausted and spiritually destroyed than even doing that seemed difficult right now.

Creating the portal, she moved her hand to penetrate that shimmering passage. The strain became momentarily overwhelming and that nascent portal fizzled out. Quickly Donna summoned another one, getting ready to fulfill Baldur’s sordid command.

From out of nowhere, Oracle clasped her ring-shaped eye-piercing in-between his fingertips. He pulled it until the thin skin became outstretched and ready to burst. Donna elicited an ear-piercing shriek… and then piercing snapped off her eyebrow. Blood ran down her brow into her eyes and down her face from the new wound. Within seconds it had streaked down to her jaw, dripping floorward in fatty droplets.

Donna’s heart pounded with unmitigated terror. Even the other Dawnbringers seemed taken by surprise. The rip had been done so callously. No bravado, no built up, no warning… just a promptly-executed decision to damage her body carried through in a moment. She felt the searing warmth of her blood as it coated one side of her visage, still pouring from her wound as she stared up at the terrifying man with her one eye that wasn’t being bled into.

“If you want the Ants to respect you, then you can’t allow them a single mistake when in your presence. We are Gods to them. They should be God-fearing insects. What God does not punish a decree wrongfully executed?” he stoically questioned, looking at Baldur as he did so.

Donna wheezed and whimpered, trying not to lose it completely. This man was something else. He held a level of evil that was beyond even the other Dawnbringers. Even Baldur didn’t seem to know how to react. “Yeah. Sorry, sensei. You’re right, of course,” Andrew replied, sounding a bit embarrassed, rubbing the back of his skull.

“Patch her up, Doc,” Michael said.

Vladimir leaned in, placing his fingertips against Saito’s bleeding wound. His superpowers concerned cellular restoration. Fixing a small laceration was peanuts for him. The teenager’s cut was quickly mended, the blood outside left there to dry.

“I need to update all of you on the Nox and Proteus situation. That’s more important that this piece of trash. Meet me at briefing in twenty minutes. Leave the Ant here,” he said, turning and marching out the door. “If there’s anything else you want out of that bag, take it. Toss the rest.”

Puppet, Shinra and the twins immediately cleared the room. Baldur instead stopped before Donna, towering above her with fists clenched. How drastically one day could alter your perception of someone. Yesterday he had been an angel. Now he was a demon… the most damning among many.

The mighty man clasped her by the nape of her neck and and dragged her through the set of portals, locating her body all in one place for the first time in nearly an hour. “Hey!” she heard Mammoth object before the portal snapped closed in her wake, her dazed mind no longer strong enough to keep it open now that her own body wasn’t locking it in place.

Doc had remained near as well. He knelt down and fastened his animite-studded collar to her narrow, bruised throat. Instantly, Donna felt like she had been blindfolded. Always before, she had felt some kind of… instinctive… sense of where she could put a portal, where she could fit, how far away a place was. Now it was gone, completely. She felt robbed of all energy.

“Congratulations bitch! You’ve made it through your first day! Don’t think we’re going to go as easy on you from now on. This was just your whore-initiation!” the blonde man snarled.

“That’s right! You’re our personal sex-toy from now on,” Echo hissed. “You now only exist to give the boys something easy to fuck when they don’t want to go out and bother finding a groupie… and your first day on the job hasn’t even ended yet! Don’t think we’re going to leave you here all alone while we go to work. Savra, would you be so kind?”

The raven-haired woman circled the room. With them were three of her golems. She touched each one of them on the shoulder before heading for the door, turning around to give Donna a cheeky smile as she departed. The rest of them abandoned her as well, Baldur pausing for just to moment to effortlessly lift the heavy duffel that contained everything she own that was anything, locking the door and turning off the light.

As soon as they left, Saito heard inhuman rumbling, her nerves prickling with terror. Only rays of moonlight coming from the window provided any illumination, everything else was dark. Out of the blackness, the Golems lumbered towards her, their partly-concealed figures appearing like horrifying apparitions. One feature was clearly discernible though. From their clay-like loins jutted humongous clay-like shafts that absolutely had not been there before… erect and ready to fuck.

The girl screamed, instinctively trying to teleport away and finding her powers blocked utterly by the collar. Those hulking creations grasped her limbs and started wrestling her into position. Whatever thought-mechanism drove them had decided on having her spit-roasted. Powerless to fight back, one hustled behind her backside while the other brought his inanimate hard-on to her mouth.

Crying, Donna felt the poles push against both her mouth and pussy simultaneously. Those tender orifices already ached from overuse. Now they were going to fuck her throughout the night, depriving her even of much-needed sleep. They began their rhythmic slamming, penetrating her deeply. Overwhelmed with misery the youth started begging and sobbing, crestfallen as she realized that she was addressing non-responding automatons… they couldn’t even understand her, and wouldn’t obey even if they could.

The gravity of the situation set itself upon her. Her captors had been spoken the unclouded truth. She was going to be stuck in here, raped day in and day out, just for their amusement. The Dawnbringers were Devils and Sunrise Tower was Hell. She thought she had been walking into a nest of superheroes when the heroes were villains all along.

Everything she had ever believed in was a lie.

Donna’s entire worldview collapsed. She yearned for the safety of her father and mother. Would they come and save her? Would they be safe!? They had no way of even knowing about her predicament, nor did the police. The Golems kept up their piston-like pumping, able and intending to fuck her beyond the point of collapsing.

Donna’s existence faded into unending torture.


	5. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #4 - Weakling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover Art and character art available on johndrakeauthor.com

Issue #4 – Weakling  
Doc tinkered with his medical tools, more fascinated with examining the damage presented before him than he was eager to get it fixed. Hanging up in his laboratory was the Dawnbringers’ dedicated sex-slave, her upheld figure splayed-out in a contraption that held her open and exposed so that the doctor could have full access to her various body parts. It had been a rough first few weeks for the Ant Donna Saito. Having arrived a nubile young virgin, she was now a thoroughly overfucked sextoy.

Through his dark glasses, Vladimir beheld a pain-wrecked canvas with fascination. She looked comatose, or possibly deceased, countenance frozen in the contours of agony… the only sign she was alive at all was the slow expansion of her chest as she breathed. Donna’s different-coloured pupils were pointed askew in diverging directions, a sure sign of brain damage from battery and lack of oxygen, and her tongue lolled limply from her open mouth. During one of her sexual acts, thick jizz had somehow been regurgitated from her nostrils and lips in great quantities, overlaying her chin and chest in a cloudy plaster of gunky white. The youth appeared abjectly tarnished, like something you’d cast-away in a trash-bin. The disarray of her black-and-purple tresses added to this look of incongruity.

Much more obscene, however, was the condition of her holes. Her once so taut pussy had been viciously hyperextended, stretched and torn until it now resembled a widely-yawning, pink-rimmed chasm more than the tight slit it had started as. His diagnosis was stretch-induced trauma, meaning that it was unable to deflate from its current oval-shaped form. Doc was pretty sure he could have stuffed his fist into that grotto without touching either of its sides. The same assessment could be used to describe her asshole… Donna’s rear was now just another cavernous gorge that provided passage into her body.

Vladimir crouched, lowering himself to such an angle that he could gaze up at her cervix. That tiny aperture had been savagely reamed open, broken and drilled through by incredible and inhuman force, enabling him to see all the way into her womb, air now chilling and residing within that life-giving chamber. The biological unseemliness of this degradation made him elicit a rare smirk.

All around the walls of her vaginal-canal and uterus there lay tacky, coagulated semen. That entire tunnel was essentially crusted with the stuff, appearing more whitish than pink despite the damage. He knew that her anus had been similarly befouled.

This was Mammoth’s doing, he had heard. Something about Echo finally having found a way to coax the giant into getting his couch-bound ass upright and fucking the shit out of her. She must have been begging for death as it happened. Doc pursed his lips. He’d really like to have seen that. But with duties and obligations abounding, one could not be privy to witness everything with one’s own eyes.

Left to her own devices, he doubted the girl would survive. Infection would probably take her. At the very least, the damage done her mind would have been permanent… brain cells so destroyed simply didn’t grow back naturally.

Vladimir, however, was no so constrained by the rules of nature or biology.

Activating his power for cellular regeneration, the former supervillain leaned in and rested one hand on her forehead. Each Dawnbringer had their favorite parts of the young Ant to play with… and Echo would be so disappointed if she stopped reacting.

As his powers went to work, effortlessly healing injuries that should have been permanent, one of Donna’s eyelids sluggishly blinked, the other remaining open as her pupils narrowed to the same level and faced the same way again. While the cell death in her brain was easy enough to fix, Doc could do nothing about the damage to her psyche caused by the trauma… and he wouldn’t have wanted to fix it even if there was. As he went to work on restoring her ravaged. pussy, a haunted look filled Donna’s eyes as she came back to consciousness… and with that awakening came a tsunami of traumatic memories, the nightmare replaying in her mind.

***

“Destroy that fucking Ant’s pussy, Mammoth!” Echo cheered as she watched, clapped her hands in sadistic delight as she bounced on the balls of her feet.

The mighty colossus of the Dawnbringers had hoisted Donna into the air, lifting the lithe teen by the crooks of her knees so that her lower body was in an M-shape. Saito faced away from him and towards Echo and the others, hands bound behind her backside as she leaned against his chiselled abdomen. Both victim and villain were utterly nude, their sexual organs precariously close. Donna was hysterically fear-faced as she gazed down at his upwards jutting prong with shocked eyes wide. That wasn’t a cock that he had… it was a murder weapon. The club between his legs more closely desembled a flagpole than it did any of the other Dawnbringer’s cocks, so enormously thick that it appeared designed to plough elephants instead of humans. A foreboding chill shot through her womanhood, as if her very skin was trying to crawl away from that horrific appendage. If that thing went inside her, it would split her in two… she’d never survive it.

Donna was staring at her death in the form of a enormous cock pointed at the core of her being, and she knew it.

“No! No, please…. you can’t! Not this! Please, not this way!” she frantically pleaded, shaking her head around as if trying to escape his grip. What they were intending was just not possible. During her imprisonment they had made her do so many revolting and humiliating things. She had fucked, sucked and been sodomized — reduced to the condition of a subhuman sex-toy – and yet this broke all boundaries. Her body simply couldn’t take it!

She knew all about Mammoth’s lethargicness. During missions he was a genuine wrecking-ball, rampaging through battlefields with vigour and stamina that seemed unending. Yet during downtime, he was practically married to his couch, disinterested in everything. Therefore, despite her weeks-long enslavement, she had managed to avoid getting violated by his superhuman grandness… besides Oracle and Echo herself, he was the only one who hadn’t fucked her. Now though, Echo had somehow managed to coax out his libido, convincing him to unleash his corybantic wrath on her tiny pussy to give her a show.

“No! No! NOOO! NOOOOOO!!! NOOO-GwwuuUUUUAAHHHH!!!” Donna screeched so loudly that her lungs burned as Mammoth began lancing her groin on his humongous cock.

The mushroom-shaped dickhead and sunken, well raped pit pressed together, yet no penetration arose. Despite the fact that her twat-folds were spread outwards to their maximum capacity, they barely managed to get halfway across his girth. The only result of this bumping together was a lot of physical anguish in her loins.

Due to her positioning, it was almost like Donna was being seated onto his rod. With the insertion having been a miserable failure, the purple-scalped youth hoped that they would see reason and give up. Her hope proved to be futile. Mammoth only started pulling her downwards harder, his nostrils flaring and his monstrous biceps bulging as he exerted himself in the effort to be her latest rapist.

“IT WON’T WORK!” Donna screamed pathetically. “IT WON’T WORK! STOP!!!” she desperately bellowed, feeling her pussy lips folding inwardly as his dick began to make the edge of her slit cave in like a crater to make room to encompass more and more of his cocktip. The sensation was like someone placing their booted foot against her womanhood and attempting to push in with their entire body weight. Fearing for her life, she started struggling and squirming, somehow hoping to sprawl out of his grip. Those frantic death-spasms amused the onlooking Dawnbringers greatly… even the ones that weren’t specifically watching. Marcus and Trevon pointed and jeered. Shinra stood chuckling with his attention half the television while he snacked. Baldur asked if she didn’t prefer his cock instead. And in front of all of them, Echo nodded along with every scream that she made, smiling as if about to win ten million dollars in a game.

“EEEEYYYYIIIIAAAAHHHH!” Donna wailed in thought-destroying suffering. “AAUUH-AAAAUUH-GHHHUUUUHHH!!!” YOU’RE KILLING ME! AAAAUUUGGGHHH!”

Yet, despite her fears, her young, velvety lips held together, stretching heroicly as they crept creeping ever-closer to the edges of the Dawnbringer’s knobby cockhead. It was like birthing a baby, but in reverse.

Grimacing as he pushed, Mammoth was destined to ram his manhood in. “UUU-UUUHHGGG!!!” she screamed, a guttural clunk contorting her outburst as the grisly insertion occurred. With both eyes and lips trembling, she experienced the impossible sensation of having her womanhood gored stabbed beyond the point of sanity. That gargantuan organ savagely bumped against her cervix in one fell swoop, a thudding impact that numbed all of her muscles. up to her shoulders with shock. Her cunt was left hugging that invading pole like a second skin, stretched-out in perfect shape of its contours. Donna had been extended way past what she thought her natural limits were, expecting death at any second. This abnormal penetration left her in a throbbing agony as if being split-apart. Unbearable aches were pulsing through her for every second that prong remained inside… and Mammoth hadn’t even started thrusting yet!

Armed with immense muscle-power, the behemoth started bobbing her thoroughly impaled womanhood on his shaft. Her pussy compressed desperately on him, trying in vain to try and stop him, yet even though they clinched-together with enough harshness that she felt she could have crushed a soda can Donna was utterly unable to so much as slow-down his punishing thrusts one bit. Worse yet, his hands bounced her up and down viciously quickly, making it feel like an earthquake erupting inside Donna’s scrambled skull each time that cock head pounded against the opening of her womb. It was vastly agonizing and unnatural. No woman was made to experience such a painful extension. In her increasingly rare and precious moments of lucity, she wondered if any female in history had ever undergone something as hurtful and dehumanizing as this.

“Slam right through her cervix, Darlin! I know you can do it!” Echo encouraged the behemoth. “Vandalize that Ant’s womb so bad we don’t have to worry about if she’ll ever get pregnant again!” The blonde amazon sounded simultaneously mirthful and mischievous, as if she were cheering for a sports team or a horse at a race, not for the destruction of another human being. The giant heeded her calls, designing his thrusts so to drill into that normally unreachable remoteness. Donna’s heart thundered so harshly that she thought it was going to explode as he sought to skewer her innermost core. They were possibly dealing with a sexualized murder, and it was amusing to the false heroes!

Then it happened.

His cock, somehow turned harder and more unstoppable than any rod of steel, punched right through her cervix, cracking the boney barrier in the process. Unbelievable hellish agony filled her, the tortured superheroine screeching skyward as her whole body spasmed in anguish. His cock… the head of his cok was inside her womb… Mind-shattering pain enveloped her instantaneously. Stretched to the brink of rupturing, the frenzied Mammoth still kept furiously boning against her tender reproductive-canal. Had her father not dedicated Donna to a lifetime of gymnastics and acrobatics, then she would not have possessed the flexibility and strength to survive this ordeal… yet even with it, her training-honed body was only strong enough to hold on by the barest of margins. It did nothing at all to keep her intact, nothing at all to ease her pain.

Donna kept screaming, her existence reduced to such a state of physical meltdown that she was unable to properly form words… she just babbled fractions of pleas between screams, unable to give words to her despair and agony. Mammoth didn’t care – he kept ramming his cock up her twat and it hurt like nothing she had ever experienced, like nothing she had ever imagined. There was a constant banging noise from inside her whenever he plunged into her uterus, those savage collisions creating sounds more akin to demolition than anything which sounded like sex. Since he fucked with a jackhammer’s pace, the fleshy thuds were constant like an unending chorus. Assaulted with bone-jarring impacts, Donna’s figure abandoned all semblance of sentience and instead started flopping and jerking about like an bludgeoned rag-doll. This was met with a barrage of heckles and insults from the onlooking Dawnbringers. Many laughed so heartily that they were folded in half. How could they hate her so? She had done nothing to them except steal away some minute airtime on the news, and even that by accident. Why this red-hot loathing for an Ant like her? Were they truly so evil that watching her get fucked to death was what they considered primetime entertainment? From the depths of her soul, in that moment, Donna regretting not just leaving her classmates in the clutches of those officers… in fact, she regretted ever even considering being a hero.

“Mammoth! Mammoth! Mammoth!” Echo cheered, pumping her fists in the air as she did so. Soon, everyone else joined her, repeating the giant’s name as he power-fucked the helpless teen. The brutalization of Donna’s womb had gotten its own chorus, and they kept regaling the brute’s actions until he was finally ready to orgasm and complete the thorough despoiling of that ruined hole.

For the tortured Donna, it felt like someone had just opened a fire hydrant within her womb, except the flood was searing hot. Superheated sperm came shooting onto the walls of that delicate uterus, scalding the battered membrane. The hazardous substance remained clinging to its contours afterward, stuck in place like a spray of glue against her sides… and since he kept thrusting even while ejaculating, every outwards lurch was accompanied by a humongous deluge of excessive spunk, that thick jizz pouring out through the broken edges of her cunt. To receive such a prodigious injection of seed then have so much of it flood out of her made it seem like oceanic waves were striking through her innards. Donna couldn’t believe the extent of her torments. Those gooey semi-fluids just kept spurting.

Donna hung there in the monster’s grip, her head hanging low… too exhausted to even hold it up any longer. Her arms likewise dangled loosely at her sides… but she was still awake enough to hear Echo’s voice. “Don’t think this is over, darling!” Echo teased, her tone as acrimonious as it was gleeful. “Mammoth can go on fucking for an entire day… when he gets going, no one can stop him. You’ll be left more thoroughly overfucked than all the times you’ve been with Baldur, Shinra, Lancer and Thermal combined!”

“Hey!” they all jocularly injected, feigning stung male bravado.

Horrified yet too sexually brutallized to vocalize it, Donna almost fainted upon realizing the giant was not slowing down his pumps in the slightest. His dickhead was still furiously erect and new wallops were being laid into her now sperm-besmirched womanhood. His intensity hadn’t lessened one bit. The muscle-man was transfixed by the desire to have her hate-fucked, fuming and snarling as he did so.

Skewered helplessly on his dick, the beautiful young superheroine could do nothing as she forced to endure another monstrous fucking… and another, and another, and another…

***

Doc had finished repairing her sex, his glowing finger managing to tighten her until her ruined hole was as neat and tight-looking again as it had been when she first rode the elevator up to this place. Her slit had been refurbished into an immaculate condition. The barely-conscious Donna felt of two minds about this. Superficially, it meant that she didn’t have to behold what a horridly mutilated gash her pussy had become, meant that it had stopped hurting. Yet… she knew that they weren’t doing it out a sense of mercy. They were restoring her because the Dawnbringers wanted to keep raping her… wanted her body to be tight and pleasurable for them. Had she just been allowed to expire… then it might finally have been the end of her suffering

He went to work on her anus. That hollowed-out asshole still ached…

***

After Mammoth had grown bored of viciously mauling her sex, he had moved on to breaking in that other orifice instead. Donna was placed flat against the ground inside her cell, the giant blanketing her backside in a dominant position. Her resistant sphincter could do nothing to prevent him from brute-forcing his way inside. Any defiance her anus showed to that humongous object was ruthlessly pulverized, like a wrecking-ball hitting a wall. Just like with her ferociously distorted cunt, that tiny passage became mercilessly outstretched and turned into a giant’s cocksleeve.

Donna bellowed and shrieked and screamed, drooling helplessly as she cried like a child and wailed her pain. Mammoth reamed her unremittingly, those hips sawing back-and-forth on-top of her tight, athletic rear as as if trying to break her into fragments of skin and bones with nothing but the thrusts of his cock. Her ass was absolutely flattened underneath his heaviness. She was given no opportunity to rest or recover at all… that engorged weapon of a dick just kept vandalizing her besieged colon.

During this strenuous sodomy, the other Dawnbringers thronged around her, In her held down and dominated position, Donna couldn’t see any more of them than just her shoes. Many of them spat at her, taunted her, and placed their soles atop her temples like gangsters marking their territory. Shinra would even occasionally drop some of his popcorn on her… and all while she thought she was going to die from getting buttfucked in front of an audience.

Mammoth’s orgasms were as obscene and plentiful as when he had wrecked her pussy, his testicles seemingly possessing the capacity to churn-out an unlimited amount of cum out of proportion to their size… his recovery speed something absurd. Much of that seed was jettisoned throughout her tubular bowels, sluicing through its various twists and bends. The air-tight plug of her rectal-canal prevented large quantities of jizz from splurging back out of her anus. She was just a sewer to dump cum into to the man.

Eventually, fatigue began to set in and the novelty of her vicious rape wore off… not for Mammoth, but for the other Dawnbringers. Even as the behemoth kept ransacking her at the same blistering intensity, the others began to stretched in weariness. Bored or exhausted, individual heroes started leaving the show, abandoning Donna alone in the room with that beast they called Mammoth. The last one out… Donna felt sure it had been Echo… even flipped the light-switch on the way out. None of it phased Mammoth at all – he just kept screwed her as the full-moon rose and illuminated a blackened sky.

When daylight broke, they returned, rubbing sleep-addled eyes. Echo, the first one to pay the Ant a visit, burst into chest shaking laughter upon seeing the condition that Donna was in. Mammoth had fucked her through the entire night, practically thumping an unresponsive corpse for most of it. Her shy anus had been utterly mangled, ruined as if pillaged by ten-thousand barbarians.

The true obscenity, however, was how all that liberally unloaded cum had affected her. With no other direction to venture, that discusting cock cream had been forced up and up to sluice through her digestive system. Eventually, internal pressures made it drain into her stomach-sack, and then up through her esophagus. The end-result was that Donna wound up vomiting up the sperm that had been poured into her ass by the gallon, sordidly ejecting the cream through her nostrils and mouth. A large puddle of greasy white had pooled in-front of her floor-touching lips. The sight was utterly unseemly, utterly inhuman.

Because so much of that disgusting sperm had been clogging her airways during its passage, asphyxiation had been an constant peril. Donna had come within a hairsbredth of choking to death on filthy cum from the depths of her ass a thousand times during the night. The experience left her eyes visibly bloodshot and haggard. Only by coughing and belching violently had she managed to eject those butt-inserted spunk-wads. Dried rivulets of the seminal fluids had been left in her nasal vennels, impregnating therein their offensive tang. This had gone on for so long that she had lost all sense of time and place.

Enduring this grueling and undignified struggle to survive was supremely traumatizing, the teen almost having lost touch with sanity. Wallowing in misery, she had felt her sense of identity barely clinging on. Pain had made her body grow numb just as it had burnt away at the grey matter of her brain. Echo had been right in what she had said. Mammoth had fucked her worse than Baldur, Shinra, Lancer and Thermal combined. Eventually, the lack of air had caused the damage to her mind that meant that, mercifully, she didn’t remember more.

***

“There,” Doc said, completing his mission. “Good as new.”

Her asshole had been refitted to normal size. There was no longer any spacious craters gouging-out her nether-regions. Sustaining this damage and then being tightened back up again made Donna feel disconnected from her flesh. It made her feel like a doll, like an inanimate being. It was soul-crushing, a vicious stomp on her sense of self. The impression was made all the worse since Donna had been destroyed by the very people she had thought saved abused girls from fates such as these.

A door opened and closed. High-heels clacked. Echo stepped into view wearing a stylish pencil dress, the ravishing blonde inspecting Donna from tip-to-toe. She was holding a partly-drained champagne glass in one hand, seeming slightly inebriated.

“Is the slave completely healed?” she asked.

“Her body is,” Doc answered, grinning. “I actually made some… improvements.”

“Good… Because the boys are missing their whore. I’ll be taking her now,” she replied, pointing towards Saito with a waggling finger. It obviously wasn’t her first drink.

“If she bursts apart then she bursts apart,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’ll have warning I guess, won’t you? Besides, we can always get another one.”

Donna wasn’t human to them. Despite being present, they didn’t talk to her, they talked about her, like she was furniture or some commonplace equipment. Her life or death was of no concern to them except for in how it related to their amusement. Mammoth’s rape was just an extra-grievous example. Only sheer, stubborn will to live enabled the teenager to withstand all of this defilement. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t let this be the end of her.

“You’ve forgotten the…” Echo blurbed, outstretched fingertip poking against both of her nipples.

“Oops,” Doc said with a grin. “Sorry, got distracted with my improvements. My mistake, my Lady,” he said with a slight bow.

The Russian scanned his laboratory in search of something. He found it lying between two test-tubes. It was an ordinary needle. Grasping the tool, he went over to Donna. The girl’s nerves frosted as she realized what he was intending to do. Even though she had plenty of piercings… and she had even considered these ones… she didn’t want it like this… The need to jump and twist around like a panicked animal overcame her yet Donna barely managed to suppress the emotions. Her tortured senses had become somewhat accustomed to dealing with impending agony, and she knew that squirming would only make it worse.

Vladimir clasped one of her nipples in-between his fingertips and pulled outwards. With her tit so extended, he started piercing the needle tip through its vulnerable target. Donna girting her teeth as pain exploded. She felt how that sharpened metal dug into the membrane and then slid right through it, leaving behind a tiny aperture. Vladimir’s healing capability make sure that there was no bloodshed. Having callously punctured that mammilla, he moved onto the next one.

Donna fought the harrying tension within her. Her body didn’t belong to her anymore. They modified it however they wished. All she could do was to try and minimize the pain by not doing anything that stoked their ire. It was the only kind of control she had over her life now.

He penetrated the second nipple just as coldheartedly as he had the first one. Saito hardened her senses, unleashing a small gasp when he was done. While Echo played spectator, he inserted ring-piercings into those man-made orifices, locking the devices in place. They were larger rings than she would have ever considered, slutty regalia, the sort of tawdry bedeckings you’d see on a brain-dead bimbo. Just seeing them on her made her feel cheap and whorish.

“You should feel lucky, darling. Not every Ant gets her piercings done by a professional,” Sarah commented, circling the rims of her glass with one finger. “Now, for the final one.”

Doc squatted, bringing his face level of her crotch, still equipping that needle. Donna gasped with onrushing terror as she realized what he was going to do. This one she had never dreamed of. She warred against fear-born tremors, her newfound skills of remaining immobile when being tortured knowing they were soon to be tested.

With a surgeon’s steadiness, Vladimir’s skilled hands coaxed that erogenous pleasure-bud out of its protective clithood. Having it presented, he readied the needle. Donna almost lost control of her bladder as its pointed tip pricked against the side of her clitoris. Closing eyes and grimacing, she awaited insertion with a thoroughly harried mind

She couldn’t help it… she screamed, limbs flexing against her bounds as the intense agony of the needle washed over her. His instrument skewered her genitalia and left it permanently mutilated. Just as with the nipples, he slid a ring through its gash, transforming her womanhoods appearance into something much more promiscuous and tacky-looking than it had been before. All rings were big enough for a grown man to hook his finger through. They wanted her to be a slut. Now she looked like one.

“Excellent!” Echo remarked. “Some wretchedly sleazy piercings. You should feel good about yourself, darling… they blend seamlessly with your style! I mean, you’re a dyke goth-ant with no taste… you were inevitably going to get those slut-buds pierced sooner or later, anyways. So you really should be thanking us. You are a dyke, aren’t you?” she questioned.

“No, Mistress. Baldur fucked the dyke out of me. Thank you for the piercings,” she yelped, having learned how to speak when they prompted her too.

Sarah grinned, beaming a pearly-white, all-American smile. “Good! It’s nice to see you so well mannered, darling… because you’re going to be put through the ringer in a whole new way tonight.”

***

The drunken Dawnbringers erupted into hoots and hollers as they saw Donna exit Doc’s med-bay, humiliatingly naked and leash-led by Echo. The only clothing on the teen’s svelte figure was her animite collar. However, the blonde’s leash didn’t lead there – Instead, her slim chain had been fastened to Donna’s recently-inserted clitoris-hoop, dominating her via that intimate hypersensitive zone. The heroine would occasionally tauten her leash just to be hurtful, making Donna let out a choked off sob as she stumbled forward.

They were having some sort of celebration… For what, Donna had no clue. It was obvious that a lot of liquor had been consumed, though. Emptied bottles abounded all over the place. Candlelight was shouldering the majority of the room’s illumination, as the cloudy sky provided no illumination to dispel the pitch darkness outside, above the skyline of the rest of New York. All of her captors were present save for Oracle and Doc.

“C’mon, darling, don’t be shy… show yourself off, you look pretty… for a worthless whore, anyway!” Sarah mocked as she guided their slave into the center of the group.

Not knowing what to do, Donna struck bold poses, accentuating her newly bejeweled bits. Many touched and prodded at her sore clitoris and nipples, grasping the circlets and pulling them outwards so as to hear her yelp. Her once so prominent shyness about being touched had calcified under their repeated molestations. She was broken-in to people laying handholds on her breasts and butt-mounds. Her private parts were now public. Everyone seemed to agree that the new piercings were an improvement. 

“You’re not here just to be looked at, bitch!” Baldur snarled, looking impatient. “Haven’t you told her?” he questioned Echo.

“No,” the blonde tittered. “Where would be the fun in that?”

“You’re here to deal with a very pressing issue, bitch!” Baldur continued. “And for once, it isn’t our hard-ons! But it’s still going to involve our dicks. You see, all us lads here got to take a wicked piss, but the plumb seemed backed up… Mammoth’s fault… again.” He grinned. “Luckily, we have our own inhouse little sewage-system right here!” Baldur smirked, drunkenly scuffing the top of her head.

Donna fought down instantaneous nausea. Her insides went cold yet she did not show it. Drinking… piss!? She should have seen it coming. These people were monsters. They’d subject her to any foul act they could think of.

“Isn’t this what you’ve always dreamed about? Being the personal piss-pot for all the Dawnbringers? A valuable member of the team?” He chuckled. “Well, congratulations, bitch! Welcome to the Dawnbringers. I’ve downed so many beers that I’ve lost fucking count, and my bladder is about to burst! So get down on your knees and open up that pretty mouth of yours… The world’s foremost Superhero is going to water his stupid Ant…”

Intentions divulged, the smiles on everyone’s faces turned to laughter. As the shamed Donna fell to her knees, the intoxicated group thronged around her face, not worried about the potential splash at all. Baldur fished out his dick, soft for once but still prodigious in size. He pointed his tip against Donna’s mouth from a foot away, utterly committed to treating her like just another urinal.

“Gape those lips wide, you insipid Ant!” he snarled while struggling to uncork his bladder. “Spread your lips Wiiiiddgh!” he grunted as the passage abruptly opened, waste-fluids birthing violently from that presented pisser.

The emerging jet missed its mark, striking like spat venom against Donna’s eye. She winced and closed her befouled eyelid, keeping her mouth orifice dutifully opened. After a slapdash rinsing of her face, Baldur managed to hit bullseye, the golden stream spurting right into her unsealed maws. That oral-cavity was stocked-up with urine like a bottle placed underneath a cranked-up faucet, the pee making splattering sounds as it impacted against her tongue. He groaned cathartically upon hearing it. Having first induced Donna into sexual-slavery, Baldur had now broken her into her duty as a toilet.

“Keep taking it, bitch! Swallow! If you waste my valuable piss then I’ll beat the shit out of you!” he growled. “Weren’t you listening? You’re the urinal around here now!” The huge man spoke with a drunken furor.

Donna subserviently obeyed, eyebrows knitting with disgust as that abominable flavor washed over her palate. Because of all the beer he had ingested, the urine was horribly murky and dark. She could practically feel the foam bubbling as it swirled around inside her mouth. It tasted horrifically bitter and salty both, even delivering an acidic punch against her gums and teeth. Naturally, it was likewise offensively warm, amplifying her abject disgust. She wasn’t just drinking piss… she was drinking piss at its foulest.

Since Baldur had apparently been holding back for quite a while, the surge came with overwhelming output. Swallowing continuously, the gateway between her mouth and gullet was rendered null, urine sluicing down that gorge as if it was a toilet-bowl. That consumed piss splashed straight down her stomach, feeding her a liquid meal of pure urine. Yesterday, she had almost asphyxiated due to spewing up Mammoth’s jizz… now she was having similar issues with Baldur’s piss going the opposite way. There was only one solution… she needed to shove aside her degradation and repulsion and drink down the piss as quickly as she possibly could, attaining just enough breathing room to take in some much-needed oxygen.

It didn’t go unnoticed either. “An Ant in the position mother-nature intended for her,” Echo mused.

After some ferocious drainage, Baldur’s bladder emptied, his powerful stream evaporating. He made a satisfied sound and off-handedly stepped aside… but Donna received no reason to celebrate. On the contrary, Lancer and Thermal approached with Shinra standing in their middle. The grinning trio presented their piss-ready wangs and all took aim of her mouth. Her fearful eyes dashed between them, beholding piss-slit after piss-slit with the utmost anxiety. Their intentions were obvious.

“Stick your chin up!” Marcus ordered. “Present that mouth! Wait until your entire mouth-hole is filled up before you gulp it all down! We want you to drink our piss like you’re downing shots at a bar!”

Spirit plummeting, Donna obeyed, doing as she was called to do. Three beams were fired into her gaping mouth in perfect unison, amalgamating their sordid urine inside her despoiled maw. Cruel laughter came from Savra and Echo as they watched a fellow woman do something they would rather die than perform. In accordance with protocol, Donna allowed that piss-pool to grow until it reached her lips before swigging it all down in one go. Holding it this way forced her to truly savor the fetid tang of these males alcohol-heavy payloads. After a mere few mouthfuls, her stomach rumbled with nausea, rebelling at the unhealthy intake. The adolescent would go on to swallow several pitchers of the golden liquid before it was all over. During her weeks of imprisonment, her tummy’s sensitivity had definitively hardened, as she had daily been made to devour bucket-loads of disgusting cum, and still this tested even her limits. It was like an ocean swirled around inside her of boiling, repulsive froth.

Mammoth stepped forwards while rubbing his belly, the ground seeming to shake underneath his weight. He hefted his piece into position. Donna’s entire being chilled at the prospects of having to also ingest the refuse of his no-doubt preposterous bladder. Trembling with trepidation, she kept her lips agape while facing-down that gigantic cock that had so nearly killed her already. His urine splashed against her face with a sound like a fountain… he pissed like a horse, possessed a stream so thick that it could have been coming from a garden hose. Its impact splattered yellow-colored fluids in all directions, the force of the jet almost knocked her head backwards. Other metahumans had to hop backwards to avoid the splashage, laughing at Donna’d defilement.

Bravely, Donna attempted to catch in her mouth like she had been ordered, tried to swallow as much of it as possible… yet taking the entire spray simply seemed impossible. Worse, Mammoth seemed to not intend to defile her like the rest. Disinterested in her already thoroughly sullied mouth, he instead manipulated the beam so to make it into a rainfall, showering her figure with hot piss. Soon he moved to target specific body parts. Donna attempted to follow that gush with her mouth as it traveled over her breasts, her stomach, down to her pubic-mound and thighs, her pathetic and ineffectual attempts to keep up with it causing laughter among the Superheros for her unspeakable actions. The realization that she had just actively degraded herself without their input punctured daggers through Donna’s already tormented heart. It had all been done so to stave off their potential wrath… yet that didn’t lessen the shame one bit.

Coated in a murky carapace of the behemoth’s urine, she wallowed in disgrace. These people held absolutely no respect for her as a human being and handled her like a subhuman. The humiliation and debasements would just go on and on until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Donna fought oblivion. It felt like she was barely hanging on.

Then Echo drove her foot viciously up between Donna’s legs. Screaming, she sprawled down into the puddle of piss on the floor, hands going down to desperately cover her abruptly agonized cunt. “What have I told you about making a mess of my fucking floor, bitch?” Sarah said coldly, a cruel twinkle in her eyes.

“But… but…” Donna whined. “He… didn’t…”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem, darling,” Echo said, kneeling down by her face. “Not a ‘me’ problem. Why do you make me hurt you like this, Ant? Haven’t you learned your place yet?”

“I’ve brought more liquor!” Gnarl gleefully shouted as he emerged from the hall with a beer-keg over his shoulder, smiling like a beverage-seller as a sports game. Most of the Dawnbringers headed over for a refill, and Donna starting crying as she realizing that her job was nowhere near completion.

While the men surrounded the new supply of booze, Savra stepped up to her front, an unknown male draping his arm across her shoulders. Donna was taken aback at encountering someone new for her first time inside the tower. He looked disconcertingly unremarkable, pencil-necked and spindly-armed, standing just a tad taller than Hellen. It took her a few seconds to realize that this must be Puppet… the real Puppet. The man always orchestrated his presence through his dolls, even during interviews and media-appearances. In the actual flesh, he was just another guy. A human like any other save his powers of spiritual possession. Donna might be the only one to see what he looked like in years.

The man’s spouse unbuttoned his fly and grasped the python lurking within, pointing it towards Donna’s mouth. He was here for no special circumstances. Just another man who wished to drain piss into her mouth like a urinal.

“Damn, look how rundown she has become,” he stated, urinating.

That normal-sized jet was quite manageable after all that the Ant had gone through. As he kept shedding water, he addressed his wife. “Our anniversary is coming up. Did you know that this little plaything will be playing a key role in the festivities?”

Savra smiled wickedly, leaning against his shoulder. Her blackhearted gaze told Donna that the golem-maker was looking forward to it very much.

***

“Hold still, bitch!” Marcus snarled, the black brute squatting in-front of her splayed-out thighs.

She had almost squirmed from the pain, even with both Baldur and Thermal holding her down. Lancer had activated his power-reserve through one outstretched finger, effectively transforming its tip into a branding-pen. With such a configuration, he was carving-in ember-black phrases onto the girl’s smooth skin, just above the pubic-mound. The agony was far worse than getting a simple tattoo… the words were being burned into her skin in the most agonizing way she could imagine.

“There!” he barked, rising. “That’s our favor to Puppet done!”

Chuckling, all three rose, abandoning her jail-cell. The room turned quiet except for her sobs. Many more of Savra’s creations stood posted along the walls than usual. Frazzled with anguish, the purple-haired adolescent felt trepidation shrivel her belly. These days, she wished that she had just portalled outside of the building when she had had the chance and fallen to her death… but even that escape was denied to her now with the animite around her throat.

The door reopened. Through its square frame, Donna saw Savra standing with a blindfold around her eyes, a trio of Puppet’s dolls flanking her. They gingerly guided her inside and then liberated her vision. That black-clad, svelte-figured woman smiled upon seeing the words written just above Saito’s pussy-mound. “Happy Anniversary” and on the other side, “Rape Me.”

“Lovely,” she cooed, giving one of the inanimate dolls a peck on the cheek. “We’ll have Doc heal the Anniversary-one tomorrow. I think the other one fits her so perfectly that we’ll make it permanent,” she said. A mere glance at the wall was all it took for every single one of the dozen constructs to begin coming to life with a rumble of activity, all of them approaching Donna.

***

For the couple’s entertainment, Donna was rendered turned into a one-woman gang-bang show. It was almost like custom created porn for the couple, porn that they could participate in. Savra stood amidst the fray, directed the orgy like an orchestral conductor, masterminding how her violation would proceed. Golems and dolls screwed her in tandem, all lifeless constructs who knew no limit to their stamina.

It was a calculated, orderly defilement as opposed to the usual hot-blooded hate-fucks normally inflicted upon her. Of course, that didn’t mitigate her agony at all.

“Iiiiaahh!” the teen wailed as a hump-backed sentinel pressed his blunt dickhead against her cunt, parting the nether-lips and sliding in. The insertion was followed by heavy mechanical pummeling, treating that womanhood like a well to be ruthlessly drilled. Every blow dug against the opening of her womb with savage force. It was like taking a block of wood up her snug snatch, the hardness a torture to absorb. Meanwhile, one of Puppet’s avatars was kneeling by her head, stiffened penis jutting towards her mouth. Grasping her head, he made her swallow it, enforcing a two-fronted attack on her holes.

Ever since Doc had healed her, she had learned the mixed blessing that it was. He hadn’t just restored her… he had made her tighter than she ever had been before. After this, even a normal sized cock would have hurt… and the Dawnbringers really didn’t have any of those to offer her… and some of the dicks that the constructs used to fuck her with would have been downright comical if Savra didn’t coldly intend to make every single one of them fit. She hadn’t thought being raped could get worse… but these so-called-heroes continuously managed to prove her wrong.

“Suck my husband’s dick good, slut!” Savra hissed with a frown. “He feels all of it, you know… just because his dolls can’t bless you with their cum doesn’t mean he isn’t having a great time, so if you don’t give him a top-notch blowjob, I swear I’ll start ripping out teeth to see if that motivates you. I want to see some real technique, slut… I know you’ve learned some by now.”

As the hulking construct reamed her vaginally, Donna got to work with her tongue. She twirled and swirled all along Puppet’s bulbous tip, doing some real dexterous motions with her pink muscle against that cock. Her mind was frantically trying to keep up the pace and creativity even while getting double-teamed. This abnormal desecration was hard and arduous and there was no seeming end-point in place. The golem mounting her was abruptly replaced by another one, at Savra’s command. The sentinels would just keep raping her in an unending rotation until Hellen’s perverse sadism was satisfied.

Amidst the threesome, Donna barely noticed the sudden scampering sound until it was almost upon her. Looking towards the floor, she was aghast to see a legion of upright clothespins shuffling towards her, their notched ends functioning like legs to keep jerking them forward. Savra could animate anything, she reminded herself… and anything with the range of motion to permit independent movement could function autonomously once she had. The heroine must have brought these with her.

Mounting her pinned body like an army of ants, they positioned themselves at various junctures, dotting her entire flesh. Their touch filled her with such great apprehension that it was horribly tangible yet while getting violently pounded from two sides. With a click of Hellen’s fingers, they all unanimously snapped open and bit into Donna’s skin at once, making her squeal with all-enveloping pain radiating from at least thirty spots at the exact same moment. Her entire hue blazed with a myriad of pinched points. She looked like a hedgehog, like someone who had gotten a wooden acupuncture.

Tears ran down Donna’s cheeks as the clothespins remained locked and the golem kept ramming his huge cock into her pussy again, and again, and again. She just wished that this unbearable torment would go away. Without spilling any biological emission, the sentinel pulled back, soon replaced with another one. This creation was in the shape of a canine, one of Savra’s hunter-killers. The dog-thing positioned itself atop her torso, dick and vulva connected. Without hesitation, it started humping her labia, ferociously plunging its clay-stick into her orifice in a way which would be unnatural for its real-life counterparts. The dog truly screwed her at a piston-like pace, battering her womanhood with several jabs a second. Always before, the golems raping her had at least been close to human in shape… this was somehow even more humiliating as she was raped by what might as well be a hound.

The debasement went on and on, Savra and Puppet pulling her through every position the Kama Sutra could have dreamed of and a few of its nightmares. The couple seemed to reach their sexual elation through the abuse of her lissome flesh! She did DPs, spitroasts, reverse cowgirl, sex-while-carried, everything with partners who weren’t human. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of Savra being fucked by one of Puppet’s bodies, but generally she was too covered by a mass of artificial bodies to see much of anything. All the sexual emotions of this imposed intimacy were squeezed out of her person… it wasn’t even about her. They were just using her as a toy to enjoy one another. It was as if they wanted to make her just another construct, draining her of all organic sensations. She felt like an inanimate fleshlight, just an idle plaything for momentary entertainment to the married couple.

After hours of backbreaking sex, she had been left covered in sweat and was so fatigued she could barely breathe. While getting doggy-styled through the ass by Puppet, Savra suddenly stood before her, naked and gorgeous. The raven-haired woman crouched down in front of her face, projecting that lubricated vulva towards her mouth. Watching it, she almost became jealous. Hellen’s quim was neat and tidy, the complete opposite of her thoroughly mistreated cunt.

“Suck,” she ordered, as if Donna was just another one of her automatons.

For the first time in her imprisonment, Donna was faced with a sex act she had actually fantasized about… but raped lesbian drew no pleasure from this humiliating deed. That slit was just one more hostile sexual organ that she was forced to appease, and not doing so would mean mind-shattering reprisals. While the woman’s husband speared her ass, she dined on Savra’s womanhood until it was so hot and juicy that the degenerate orgasmed with pleasure, moaning as she spraying climactic fluids over Donna’s face.

It was the one biological response she received during their entire anniversary.

***

Laying face-down on cold cement within her jail-cell, Donna wept. Her tortured flesh ached so terribly that she felt unable to move. The daily rapings just kept getting worse and worse. She couldn’t stand it. Now, Echo had even removed her mattress… it was strange how such a tiny thing as removing such a pathetic kindness could make everything seem so much more dismal. But at least this night, Savra’s golems weren’t active… they let her get some sleep for a few hours once or twice a week to keep her alive. After what she’d been through, Donna desperately needed the respite… and yet, fresh trauma kept her mind active and awake, and despite her exhaustion sleep eluded her.

As the weeks had gone on, her abuse had turned more into a casual custom than any kind of special event. The Dawnbringers violated her about as frequently as they went to the toilet. Donna was an item to them, a fun activity just like the pool-table or the TV. She was recreation for their cocks.

Occasionally, they took the collar off her now, always when Echo was nearby so that she didn’t dare use it for anything but exactly what they commanded. Her portals were useful for ease of access to her holes. Earlier today, Donna had been sucking Baldur’s cock in one end of Sunrise Tower while surrendering her lower body to be whipped by Echo om the other. Her head would protrude into his apartments, slovenly lapping and suctioning on his pole while he absentmindedly played with his phone. Meanwhile, her torso would be battered by leashes and floggers, the cruel blonde wanting to work off some steam. To this day, Echo was the only one of the Dawnbringers, save for Oracle whom she never saw, who hadn’t raped her yet.

The abuse left her so thoroughly damaged that many red welts and bruises littered her figure bellow the neckline, those heroines putting power into their blows. Yet any time she whelped or made any cries of agony, Baldur would grow enraged and almost pull one of her piercings out like Oracle had done that first night. Ever since it had first happened, Donna had become terrified of having her piercings ripped open. Luckily, the Dawnbringer leader himself had never bothered her since that one time she met him. Somehow, Oracle frightened her the most.

Echo certainly knew of her blowjob hardship, of course… but the southern beauty yet still treated Donna like a punching bag. In the middle of this session, Marcus had apparently texted Baldur and informed him that he wanted a piece, so the girl had been forced to strain her concentration to open up another portal into the kitchen where the black man was seated to fist his erection for him. She had jerked that lewd pole without even once seeing it. The sexual act was purely one of ejaculation neediness. Lancer felt an itch in his balls and he appropriated a piece of their pet slut to take care of it. Donna was merely a masturbation tool to him, something to use and discard. With her portals, she was essentially a long-range gloryhole for the men.

Saito had tried to keep count of the days, she had lost count at forty four, and it had been at least a week since then, hadn’t it? It felt like a year, and yet the way she spent half her nights ensured that it also felt like it only been a handful of long, long days under their care. How long would this continue? Would anyone rescue her? Would she even make it out of here alive?

Donna did not want to die. Especially not like this… but as her hope faded further, she often found herself thinking of the window and ways that she might be able to force it open… regret that she hadn’t take the desperate and probably suicidal gambit to escape by falling when she had still had her powers and even that unlikely chance. Her spirit felt moribund. When she had dreamed of being a Superhero, she had wondered if she could truly put her body on the line. If she could sacrifice a limb like her high-school counselor Lux had. Or if she would have the courage to die in battle against evil like some of the former Dawnbringers had purportedly done. Like Baldur’s old compatriot, Osiris, a true champion of goodness who had died during the climactic assault against Midnight himself. Now, she realized that all those stories might have have been lies. The Dawnbringers did fight villains… but only to stay in power, to achieve fame and fortune, not to save the innocent. All her beloved hopes and dreams of them had been wretched untruths.

She had known that if she persisted in trying to become the kind of hero she looked up to she might meet a violent ends, but not one of her nightmares had ever involved expiring due to rape. Fucked and abused so badly that her mind becomes unmoored from all will to live. Vladimir’s daily cures might maintain her body in a functional state, but… somehow, she knew that it was not enough. At some point, she would reach a breaking point, a condition in which the anguish became so extreme that her sense of reality would begin to break down. Donna would experience a mental-collapse. Her bloodstream would still pump and her lungs still palpitate, yet her brain and will would have been calcified. She would not longer be Donna Saito, student, daughter, young superheroine. She would be… a husk. A zombie. She would be exactly the sort of brainless sex-toy that the Dawnbringers wanted to make her into. Even if she kept breathing, she equated that with death. The ghastly ruminations chilled her further. She couldn’t stop thinking about her end. She was a teen and she wouldn’t live to see twenty. The coldness of the grave was all about her…

Behind her, the prison-door slowly creaked open, eliciting a barely audible whine. Instantly, Donna played dead like a possum. They had done this before. One of the Dawnbringers having woke up with a hardon and sought to extinguish it on her. Sometimes, when they saw that she was unconscious and it would be more trouble than it was worth, they left. Not often. Almost never. But at least once, and that was enough.

“Donna…” came a whisper. A man’s voice.

Her nerves prickled. Why would they just not go away?

“Donna…” he repeated.

It wasn’t one of their voices. It was a trick of some kind!

Soft footfalls approached her. Having sneaked to her side, Donna sensed him squatting. Her anxious flesh was about ready to explode with trepidation. Who was he?

“Donna…”

She turned. The sight of that shadowy visage stupefied and confounded her soul. It was that of her father. Sam Saito. Legion.

His face was hard-set and tense, displaying the countenance of someone within a trance of concentration. His eyes were looking at her, intense. “Can you stand?” he asked.

Stiffly, shock overwhelming her, she bobbed her head up-and-down, mouth gaping. He… he had come for her!

“Get up,” he said, grasping her forearm. They rose. Donna’s legs felt as unsteady as a newly-borns. “We need to get out of here. We’ll head towards the elevator. You need to move silently. Can you do that?” he asked, that voice nothing but a breeze.

There was a second nod. Donna’s thoughts seemed befogged. She couldn’t think this through, couldn’t feel anything. There was an unreality to what was occurring. The same sort of reality-distortion she had experienced upon first discovering the true colors of the Dawnbringers.

“Stalk my steps,” he whispered.

Like an apparition, Legion began to move, the motions of his legs so smooth he seemed to be gliding. His figure exited the door of her room. Donna followed.

They journeyed through the hallway, down the stairway. Only when they had hit the main lobby did Donna dare to think or experience anything. Was this really happening? The sense of unreality had yet to leave her. Everything seemed so ghostly with Sunrise Tower being under complete blackout. It was all so oneiric…

She pinched herself, hard. There was pain and her vision did not dissipate. This was not a dream, even though it felt like one.

They were halfway across the room — drawing ever-nearer the elevator. All she saw was the backside of her father’s figure, eyes focusing in on the nape of his neck while maintaining her pace. A slight glow had alighted inside Donna’s heart. Had he truly come to rescue her? Was her freedom near? Why could she not accept it?

Her father had been a superhero himself. He had spent his youth fighting against crime and tyranny even though he did not wish to share those stories with her. He had the capacity to pull this off! He had truly come for her! It was really happening! Donna had been dreaming about encountering heroes all her life — yet she realized that as much as she loved her parents, she had fallen into the trap of all teenagers in her own way – the real heroes worth idealizing had been standing right in front of her her whole life.

Nascent hope surged within Donna. She was going to be free! The yearning to escape this hellhole made sweat of anxiety break out all across her forehead.

In front of the elevator doors, he paused. She did as well. Nervousness instantly prickled her. From this vantage-point, his figure was half becloaked by shadows.

He turned, slowly, spinning until they faced one another. Almighty darkness clouded his eyesockets, transforming them into impenetrable black holes. He appeared like a phantasm. She kept expecting him to take the sole remaining step into elevator… but he didn’t. Did he suspect a trap? She would follow his lead, no matter what…

“Why were you captured, Donna?” he asked, voice tense.

“What?” she blurted out a whisper, heart clutching.

“I trained you to be a warrior, Donna. Every day, I trained you. With my own two hands, I taught you the crafts of combat. Why did you allow yourself to become captured?”

The adolescent’s mind raced, pulsing through with so many thoughts and emotions that she could not achieve focus. What did he mean? Why did her father speak words like this? The elevator was right there why weren’t they escaping?

“Dad, I—”

“I thought you were a fighter. I trained you to be a hero. You failed me, Donna. “

Like the claws of a bogyman reaching out from the abyss beneath a darkened bed, her father’s fist clasped around her forearm. Donna jolted in familiarity with the touch. It was the same stern handhold that the Dawnbringers always seized when they were going to rape her. Her nerves inundated with panic.

“Father! No!” she wailed. Louder than she should have. And her father fell on her.

They descended into an impromptu wrestling-match in the shadows. Donna’s fatigue and dismay meant that her resistance quickly buckled, body collapsing to the floor. Her father pinned her onto the majestic red carpet, establishing a dominant position on top of her.

“You couldn’t even defend yourself, Donna! Why should I even rescue you!? You are no daughter of mine!” he accused, voice now a voracious yell. His visage dashed all over her figure, inspecting her flesh. “You’ve pierced yourself with slutty jewelry! Both nipples… and even your clit! I always knew that you were going to go down this route after getting your first punctures done! Why didn’t I stop it? And what’s this!? A tattoo above your pussy!? Rape Me!? By God what have you done!? You are despicable to me, Donna!” He spat. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll oblige you.” Her father starting to tear the clothes off her person. “You’re a failure as a child in every way its possible to be one. I’ll start over with the daughter I’m going to put into you…”

“Stop! Daddy! Please!” she shouted aloud, desperately pleading. They soon descended into the all-too-familiar missionary-position. Legion’s cock jutted rigidly in front of her naked pussy-mound. Even her frazzled and haggard systems found newfangled terror in this perverse incestuous situation. She was going to be raped by her own father instead of escaping!

“You bitch! I’ll treat you like you always should have been treated!” he barked, guiding his dickhead against her vulva while affixing her abdomen with one hand. She felt that unyielding flesh-rod poke against her well-used cunt and push apart the folds. The penis slid in, striking acrimoniously into her teenage grotto. Tears streaked liberally down Donna’s cheeks. Her own father’s cock was inside her! Why was he doing this?

“You deserve this!” he growled while lurching his hips, interlocking their sexual organs completely. “Had you only trained harder, then you wouldn’t be in this position to begin with!”

Feeling her furrowed femininity clasp around that ravaging pole felt horrifying in a way that Saito had previously never experienced. The penetration was a primordial betrayal. Their bond as father and child felt like it had just been cut and tossed out like garbage… now she was just another fuck-slut to him, too!

“You’re such a disappointment! Why did you not fight back!? Why did you not defend yourself? No daughter of mine could have ever done this!” he spoke through girthed teeth, pelvis pumping into her nether-regions like she was just some two-dollar whore. She was no longer of his flesh and blood but instead just some slut to be fucked and discarded. Vaginal duress emanated all over her occupied pussy as he fucked her harder, hard cock smacking into her again and again with bruising force. That carnal churning started echoing out across the empty lobby, buzzing like a lithe continuous sound throughout that desolate darkness.

She wasn’t sure how long he had raped her before before her father had started panting. She tried to fight back, but extra, glowing arms shot from his back and pinned down any part of her that tried to move. Donna’s body jerked as he slammed against her, supple breasts bobbing lightly on her frame. Her father was unrelenting. He wouldn’t stop fucking her despite the approach of an orgasm. All the love she had felt for her father was being turned into black hatred and despair.

“Your mother did not even want to hear your name after what you let happen to you,” he cursed, “So I had to come here alone! I can’t blame her! Who would want such a miserable excuse for a daughter? Had you any honor, you would have killed yourself the day you were captured!” he snarled, sounding more bestial and hateful with each word.

“Nooohohoho!!!” she wailed like a child, every cock-blow into her cunt an abject horrorshow. That scalding mockery was making her suffer as much as the physical violation. Wracking agony harried her systems so thoroughly that it made her experience facial-spasms, visage contorting and twisting so to grimace like an imbecile. Within all this dismay, Donna had lost absolute control of her faculties. Her physical postures started mirroring the dreadfulness of her soul.

“I should have raped you like this the moment you started getting foolish ideas of being a hero… that at least would have prepared you for your purpose in life of taking the cock of real heroes. That’s what you’ve always wanted, wasn’t it! No doing heroics! Not saving people! Just being a tawdry cum-slut!” Legion roared.

His pumps grew hectic. The previously virginal teen had now accumulated enough sexual knowhow to realize that her father was about to cum, to cum inside her! The act of taking the very seed that had created her into her womb was the worst thing she could imagine.

Gazing up at that thrusting man, Donna’s bleary eyes bulged almost like she was being suffocated. In truth, she felt like she couldn’t breathe, the horror of the situation robbing her of breathe almost as effectively as a thick cock or a callous hand. Then she caught a glimpse of gold on his face, in the midst of that hateful glare. As the blackness was further dispelled, Donna realized that she was looking upwards at the golden eyes of a reptile… fiendish, serpentine pupils peered back down at her from her father’s face. In this moment of realization, her rapist came. The thing that was not Legion dumped a heavy load of cream in her pussy while hilted balls-deep inside her, accentuating Donna’s weeping by splurging her intimate womanhood point-blank with inhuman seed.

And all around her, people started to laugh.

Someone flipped a lightswitch. The sole lightbulb was not enough to totally illuminate the room yet did cast a cone of floodlight above their rutting bodies. Donna’s senses became a madhouse of rampaging consternation. They had been watching her all along… Baldur, Echo, Lancer and Thermal, Savra and Puppet, Shinra and Vladimir, all closed-in around her, marshaling in a circle. Their faces were twisted like jocular clowns. Everyone was having the laugh of their lives.

“Man, you sure fucked her up good, Proteus!” Baldur exclaimed, almost breathless in his laughter, so taken that he to put his hands on knees to support himself.

“Pleasure to have worked with you, bitch,” Legion contemptuously snarled at her, the voice emerging from her father’s body now coldly feminine.

The being rose, flaccid dick flopping out of her now sperm-cluttered fanny… and its form began to… melt. During the time it took for it to walk over to the other Dawnbringers, the being’s figure had fundamentally transformed. Abandoning the flesh of her father, it took the form of a petite, short-haired woman, a brunette with a bob cut. Utterly naked, she seemed to not even notice her own nudity, placing herself between Shinra and Puppet while looking at Donna with a emotionless sneer.

Echo sighed, and passed a twenty to Savra. “I admit, I thought I’d beaten every emotion out of the girl,” she said, “I’m willing to admit when I was wrong.” She laughed again. “That was fantastic, darling… truly a show. And the idea… You’ve got to join us for fun-time more often, Oracle!”

The Dawnbringer leader stepped out of the shadows, still presidentially dressed. Donna hadn’t seen him since their first encounter. He didn’t laugh. His lips were merely… thinly pursed, victoriously bemused. Like a bird of prey who had just clutched its prey within its talons.

“I got to tell ya, Proteus! I always thought your shape-shifting was kinda lame. But Oracle’s idea really put it to perfect use,” Baldur chortled. The naked superheroine cocking an irksome eyebrow at him in response.

Another man stepped up beside Oracle. He was completely white-haired despite scarcely looking thirty. Pale-skinned and black-clad, he sported large and dark sport-shades over his eyes. The man’s merriment was as restrained as his superior’s.

A small part of her that still cared, the analytic, intelligent woman that was buried deep, deep beneath the cumdump she had become, noted them both. Nox, and Proteus. The last two Dawnbringers… the one who Oracle had said had been away on a longterm mission. They had returned. This was their idea of an introduction.

The two were among the least known of Dawnbringers, rarely appearing on TV or speaking publicly. The official explanation was that their powers and appearances regrettably made them a bit creepy, inhuman, so they were allowed to keep out of the limelight for both themselves and the public’s comfort. Nobody really questioned it. More than one Aberrant had powers that made them look frightening or discomforting. Now that she was in their presence, Donna understood more of the actual reason that she could have before… they weren’t any more monstrous than the other Dawnbringers… they were just far worse at hiding it.

One look at Proteus, and she could tell the shapeshifter seemed to have no soul at all. No wonder no one knew her real name.

“I still think we should have gone with my original idea,” Proteus stated.

“Nah, this one was better. You gotta give the boss that,” Akira replied.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t understand people,” Baldur added. Proteus’s eyes narrowed at him. “What? You don’t disagree with me, do you? Aren’t you the one always saying calling humanity ‘you’ and not ‘us?’ Do you ever consider yourself one of us anymore?” Baldur said.

“None of us are,” she said coldly. “Not the worthy ones.”

“It’s not too late for that idea, you know darling,” Echo injected. “I mean, the whore is lying right there, and it’s not like she’s going anywhere. You can rape her at any time you like! That’s how the rest of us treat her anyways.”

Donna couldn’t help but notice that wasn’t quite true… the blonde seemed the only exception. If she wasn’t at least as cruel to her as any of the others, the teen might have believed that she didn’t want to hurt her.

The shapeshifter’s reptilian gaze shifted in Donna’s direction, thinking. She blinked once, eyelids closing sideward like a snake, and Donna shuddered. The motion was abjectly disconcerting. A tiny smirk at that reaction was the only emotion Donna had seen on the woman.

“Might as well,” Proteus answered, the configuration of her womanly anatomy instantly distorting, blurring, twisting…

Donna jerked like a startled hare. The figure she was assuming was not human. It was a black, leathery mass — skin shining like latex under the floodlight. Eyes, nose and hair completely disappeared and left behind only an ever-extending mouth, teeth growing into razor-sharp fangs. Spikes started jutting out from the disks of her spine. Her limbs were made longer and grew hook-jointed like a cheetah, hands forming into devil-claws. Her tailbone expanded outwards and branched off into various ophidian shapes, creating a half dozen long thick tails.

There was nothing like it on earth. She seemed like some kind of alien monster or eldrich abomination as Proteus grew to match Mammoth’s size.

Jerking towards her, Proteus screeched so intensely that ropes of saliva flew onto Donna’s visage, exposing all of those flesh-rendering teeth in the process. The spit burned where it hit her, acidic and painful on her skin as Echo began to clap at the coming show. And then the creature leapt at her. Donna screamed, all her deeply-dug primal fears of being hunted by an apex-predator activating at high alert. She did not want to be raped by this monster! Colliding together, Proteus sunk her claws into the girl’s shoulders and ribs, grinding her toughened pelvis against the human. The lengthy tails lashed out like tentacles, clasping onto Saito’s extremities. Tiny pincers were attached to their ends, digging into her wrists and ankles so to keep them prone. It was like being attacked by an chitinous octopus!

This time, Proteus dick wasn’t even remotely human, but instead the shape of an absurdly oversized baton, a solid rod of blackness jutting outward with an oval top. Saito knew that she couldn’t escape her fate… her overused hole was about to get horrifically plugged again. After having been fucked by her father she would now be ravaged by a monster. The demonic appearance of this manifestation was an impeccable reflection of the reptilian heroine’s night-black heart.

With an animal-like lurch, the creature didn’t so much thrust into her as it clubbed its dick into her sex. The girthy dimensions made it feel like someone had slammed a closed fist up her womanhood, the onyx-tinted pecker being the biggest pole she had taken since Mammoth’s cock. Instantly, her vulva was perilously extended, smothering the bestial largeness from all sides in a futile effort to decompress. Despite the tightness, Proteus panged into her a few times to establish her dominance, drooling copious amounts of thick mouth-slime onto Donna’s anguish-strained visage while doing so. Even while being paralyzed with elementary terrors, the teenager knew that this mere penetration wasn’t the beast’s main course. She could see it on the faces of the watching Dawnbringers, all sporting wide, face-splitting grins… as if expecting something to happen.

Donna experienced a strange pressure against her cervix. Something protruding from the cock’s odd tip was stroking against that minute opening. Gawking, she craned her neck upwards as if trying to gaze at what was happening inside her cunt, eyes wide at the unworldly sensation. It felt like…

Two worm-sized protrusions instantly sought entry against her womb. Out from the monster’s cockhead had emerged two flange-headed tendrils… that was what she was feeling! They dug and wiggled against her cervix, instantly causing Donna bouts of extreme discomfiture. That unnatural intrusion prompted her to attempt to shake herself out of position, soon going into an frenzied all-out sprawl against the limbs holding her. Having that tiny aperture invaded was so intensely agonizing that she exploded with uncontrollable fits! It was a razor-pointed sensation, as if needles were trying to pierce through. Those clasping tails kept her utterly pinned as more burning slime drooled onto her breast, neck and face.

Then the tentacles inside her changed… narrowing, slimming down… and Donna screamed in agony as they managed to slither through her impossibly tiny birth passage and into her womb before beginning to wide again, forcing her open like two hands inside a closing door. Once inside her womb the tendrils went haywire, flailing around throughout that entire sacred chamber so to whip and stroke against its membrane. For Donna, it was like having her uterus callously whipped from the inside, length upon length of those tubular appendages driving into the sides of her womb. Soon enough, that innermost sanctuary was home to dozens of coiling strands, those minuscule tentacles laying themselves into multiple hoops within her so that their entire appendage could fit. It was a rancorously creative way of inflicting pain. Proteus made sure to keep pummeling Donna’s cunt with her cock even as the invasion was underway.

Those womb-lodged tendrils kept slicing against her insides the whole time. Her precious, sacred cavity, the center of her femininity, was turned into a cruel mockery of its function. The false heroes were inexorable in their capabilities to hurt her. Donna’s eyelids started to uncontrollably flutter, blinking at superhuman speeds she was in such agony.

“Nah, don’t pass out now! The best is yet to come!” Marcus remarked.

Having thoroughly occupied her womb, those tendrils ventured onward. The next passage to be invaded and defiled was her fallopian tubes. The twin-snakes split off and claimed one lane each, ferociously infesting areas never meant to be touch by outside objects, fucking them just like another cunt inside her body. Donna could feel those minute feelers squeezing through her ultra-tight tunnels. It was so excruciating that she could not even find the capacity to scream.

As they ruthlessly wiggled their way towards her egg-sacks, Saito’s head dulled and her vision faltered. She was going to go unconscious out of sheer suffering. Her sense-receptors had been abused past the point of what a normal human could experience. Going comatose was to be the first bout of clemency she had received during this entire hellish month.

“Doc, syringe,” Echo said calmly.

A tiny prick was the only indication of the shot of adrenaline pumped into her traumatized body, jumpstarting her overwhelmed brain back into lucidity. She had been wrenched back into total consciousness and appreciation for what was being done to her. Donna wept. Why? She couldn’t struggle, she couldn’t move… the entire point was watching her endure such a horrific rape, wasn’t it? Why did they need to make sure she could appreciate it so throughly when it didn’t even increase their viewing pleasure? Echo’s act of petty cruelty absolutely blinded her mind with utter dismay. This was simply unbearable. It was as if her brain was starting to atrophy. Her bladder lost control and sullied her nether-regions in a slapdash fashion even as Proteus was screwing her.

“And now she’s pissed herself!” Thermal announced, shaking his gloating face.

“Typical Ants,” Baldur replied.

“Saved the floor,” Echo said with a laugh, and Donna knew that the precog had gotten a bowl in place. “Mostly, anyway.

Meanwhile, those inquisitive tendrils had delved as deep as possible, fully conquering her insides. Now they were even free to assault her ovaries with their strokes and smacks, making it feel like her loins were going to rupture from within. Every part of her femininity was being ransacked and defiled. The blaring ache was perceivable all throughout her pierced cervix and internal passages. There was lots of tearing and stretching as those snake-like things wiggled around, small mounds jutting upwards all across her abdomen. Vladimir would need to do a lot of healing to restore her after this.

The onslaught went on, Echo twice more warning that she was about to pass out in order to get her another dose of drugs. Every bit of her reproductive system continued being desecrated until the black skinned shapeshifter had reached its reproductive apex. A shrill shriek from Proteus that stung the ear announced the coming of an orgasm. As those tendrils pushed her cervix outwards so to widen the passage, climactic jizz floodded straight into Donna’s already overstuffed womb. She became sordidly spermed right into the uterus, its natural protection removed so that Proteus could defile her femininity straight on. The alien-creature continued screeching in pleasure as it ejaculated its pollinating seed. 

Then, without warning, the shapeshifter started retracting those tendrils at full throttle. The speed of this sudden reversal caused those ophidian protrusions to chafe against Donna’s sensitive, raw skin, a horrible, abrasive sensation. It was as if her womanhood had been set aflame, blazing asunder, the extreme pain ongoing for several seconds. This agony-spike all but knocked her out, and Donna collapsed flat against the ground, weeping pathetically as she wallowed in sanity-frying agony even as the shapeshift’s horrible dick finally yanked free of her raped twat.

The onlookers kept laughing as she slipped towards the abyss. Until Echo gave her another shot, that was.

“No! Please no, No more. Nwoo,” she whimpered, her voice overruled by the Dawnbringers boisterous jabbering and snarling.

Proteus returned to her original form, looking at the faces of her peers’ to see if they were impressed with her performance.

“I still prefer the daddy-idea,” Baldur insisted.

That impelled a scowl out of Proteus. Arguments emerged between those who preferred Oracle’s plans and those who liked Proteus’s battle form. While the teammates sparred verbally, Akira walked up to their leader’s side.

“Boss, by the way,” he began. “People have been starting to ask questions about our little Ant. Security has them placated them for now, but I think they’re growing suspicious. Might do something drastic.”

“Her parents?” Oracle questioned.

“Right,” he answered.

Michael took a few seconds to think. His countenance moved not a muscle. “I’ll deal with it,” he replied.

As their leader appeared ready to leave, Nox shifted his head in Oracle’s direction. Gazing at him through those darkened-out shades, unspoken word was exchanged. Michael peered back silently for a few seconds, considering.

“Alright,” he said, nodding his head at the white-haired man before leaving the lobby behind.

Nox was one of the strangest Dawnbringers. He had the power to negate other Aberrant energies, as well as absorb and redirect them. He was the only member seen less often in public that Proteus, and Donna felt sure that the number of sentences he had spoken in public could be counted on one hand. His birth name was listed as Adam, but little else was known about the man.

Unhurried, Nox stripped off his night-black clothing before he knelt down before her out-splayed thighs. She had no energy left to use to resist him, just sluggishly acknowledging the fact that she was going to be raped again. Everyone grew quiet as if brimming with suspense. Their tone had definitively altered. That uproarious delighted was gone and replaced by tense excitement.

With cock pointing stolidly upwards and ready to fuck, The last item that Adam removed was his shades. Donna was stunned to realize that the eyes underneath were jet-black, appearing like flawless orbs of pure ebony sunken into those egg-shaped sockets. No pupils, no corona, no sclera. Just pits of inky darkness. The vision of such an inhuman gaze almost made Donna’s heart stop. This man was a monster.

Unceremoniously, Nox shoved his dick in… and with it came a psychic shockwave that rippled through Donna’s flesh. She felt… paralyzed, sundered, like being transported into a nightmare at its most horrifying stage. It was as if spider venom was swiftly shooting through her bloodstream, infecting everything and leaving behind an immobilized victim frozen in her death-spasm.

Nox started thrusting, each plunge of his prong inserting more and more of that inhuman sensation. Helpless, Saito was left peering straight up into those black-within-black globes as he fucked her. That thickened pillar of flesh oscillating into her was a bane, an killing force made physical. She became zapped of life-necessary energies. It was as if he was slowly crushing her soul. More so than when she was being fucked by anyone else, Donna felt abruptly sure that she was going to die.

“Man… watching Nox fucking always gives me the creeps,” Echo admitted, no real cheer in her voice for once. Most of her peers seemingly sharing the sentiment judged by their off-put expression. All except Proteus, anyway, who seemed strangely disconnected from it all.

With Nox’s toxin growing stronger, it felt like a boot had been placed upon Donna’s ribcage, preventing her from drawing breath. The horrid asphyxiation was ghastly drawn out, extended for much longer than what should be humanly possible. It was strangulation in slow motion. The purple-haired teen was forced to live through every little minute stage of the execution. The harder Nox pumped, the closer her soul would become to being fully submerged within the eldrich blackness of his featureless orbs.

Some tiny part of her not swimming in the horror understood. Adam’s ability to steal and reverse the energy-flow of others wasn’t just some skill he brought forth in battle. It was an internal part of his being, active at all times. It was present when he fucked, working in tandem with his abnormal libido. The black-eyed man wasn’t just raping her; he was sucking away at her very existence. He was effectively a vampire, real monstrous mythology brought to horrible life.

“Hey, don’t kill her, Adam!” Baldur injected. “Otherwise I’ll have to go through the trouble of finding another one!”

He kept thrusting, embedding her entire body with the feeling of venom until it seemed to outnumber her blood-cells. Donna felt her body move without her command, extremities contorting into jerky position, crinkling up like the limbs of a dying insect. The blackness of that man had completely enveloped her. She could not even scream. Her very person was turning into an effigy, a petrified representation of funeral-ready remains. Her face was frozen into the emotions of her horror.

Then, the man orgasmed. The transmission of seed placed Donna within a soundless void. She had reached a pinnacle where horror stopped being horror and receded into nothingness. Echo didn’t bring her back this time, and Donna’s mind sank deep, deep into unconscious, drifting through oblivion. His jettisoned cream remained within her womanhood as regalement of her defilement. There she was left to wallow within his poison.

Unconsciousness brought nothing but endless nightmares. It proved not to be the clemency she had been searching for after all.

***

“That’s right,” Echo said with a laugh. “Dance for me, darling.”

The blonde was halfway dressed, and idly fucking herself with one of Savra’s vibrators while she whipped Donna. The super heroine wasn’t bound by anything but her collar and the cord holding hands behind her back, and she was free to run wherever she pleased within the gym… not that she could get far enough away. Every few seconds, the southern belle lashed out at her again. This time, the whip caught her right on the left nipple, and she shrieked in agony.

The woman’s accuracy was unreal. Donna’s instructions were to run around the room, seeking refuge from the whip, to dodge the woman lashing at her from the swivel chair she had put in the center of it. Quickly, however, Donna realized the real question wasn’t if she could prevent the whip from hitting her… in nearly a half an hour of plaything this game, Echo had never missed. Instead, the question was if she could prevent her from hitting a breast or her cunt.

And the answer was usually no.

Donna had no idea how she was so skilled, but it was incredible… she lashed out like clockwork at a regular interval, and every single stroke landed some place sensitive. Usually it seemed like if there was any possible way that the lash could find its way between her legs, it managed… and Donna was convinced that more than half the time she “missed” a nipple or her pussy was so that she could paint another part of her body with red welts. She didn’t even understand how. The woman’s technique was incredibly sloppy… but it worked.

“Darling, can’t you do better than that?” Echo mocked. “You’re not even making this hard.”

The whip crashed into her clit as she changed direction in what she had hoped would be an unpredictable pattern… she should have known better, and the effort lashed her across her most sensitive button for the fifty-second time since this hellish game has begun.

Donna couldn’t take it any more. She collapsed, screaming in agony and writhing. A few seconds later, Echo knelt over her, pristine pussy in Donna’s face. The well trained fleshlight that Donna had become reached for it with her tongue, but Echo slapped her viciously across the face. “None of that, slut,” she spat as she lowered herself almost onto the Ant’s face… and pissed right on it.

Donna tried to raise her head up to catch the stream better, but each time Echo pushed her back down more viciously than the last, and eventually Donna just settled for catching most of it, knowing already it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the woman… she tried anyway. By now, swallowing their piss was normal. It didn’t mean she didn’t hate it. Just that it was too common to cause any particular spike of self-hatred anymore.

She looked up at Echo’s beautiful body, idly wondering why the woman’s was so vicious, why she worked so hard to keep Donna from touching her, why she had been the only one not to fuck her. Echo looked down at the piss-soaked face of her torture-slut and smiled warmly. “It’s because I have too much self respect to fuck Ants,” she said, as if Donna had actually asked. The display of her power made Donna feel cold. “If the others want to stick their dicks in a sewer, thats their business. You… you’re too far beneath me.” She chuckled. “You want my cunt so bad, dyke? Here you go.” She lifted the vibrator that she had been cumming on since she had started whipping Donna and crammed it into her mouth. “Clean that up,” she ordered. “I want to see it perfectly clean… and then you are going to get off your lazy ass, and if you don’t make me work to hit you this time, I’m going to see if Doc can heal back an eye.”

***

A few weeks later, Donna Saito marched with face submissively downcast through the palatial hallways of Sunrise Tower, leash-led by Echo. The muted padding of her bare soles contrasted starkly against the clicking of the blonde’s high-heels. Seeing the Ant walking now, there could be no ambiguity about the fact that she had been utterly degraded to the abject condition of thralldom. Excluding her subservient cadence, she was also collared, sexually pierced, and humiliatingly naked. She had been so cowed that she did nothing to shelter her disparagement and always held a fearful gaze. 

This was how Donna had come to think of herself – a simple fuck-toy. The mindset was a prerequisite for staying among the living. Just do whatever they requested, minimize her suffering at any cost. The need to avoid pain consumed her every thought and action.

They reached an internal elevator and Echo summoned its lift. Saito knew that this passage led directly to the topmost skybox, where Oracle’s personal office lay, although she’d never been there… she’d seen the man come and go from it a few times during her captivity.

With a loud bing, the doors parted. Donna’s stomach tightened with apprehension. A tug from Echo compelled her to enter that chamber.

“There,” the ravishing blonde said, unclasping her collar-fastened leash. “Now you’re perfect for him, Darling. Have fun with the old man,” she said, beaming a wicked smile and waving her hand as the doors closed bwtween.

With the ascent commencing, the youth felt her blood chill. Sarah’s sadistic mirth about whatever she was about to undergo had profoundly spooked her. In the distance, through glass windows, she could look down at the New York skyline. The memories of freedom stung her like a freshly opened wound. She yearned to be outside, down there. Then she realized something else that was peculiar. During the time-span of about a minute, she was truly alone, with not even Savra’s sentinels present to overlook her. It was the first time she had experienced these sensations in… she didn’t even know how long. Certainly since the night that Proteus had arrived, but her freedom from observation during that time had been a ploy, a falsehood. Possibly, this was the most privacy she had had since leaving her family home. It was immensely disconcerting, and the sudden freedom felt somehow like a threat… And it also made her ache for the safety of her home, her mother and father. Worst of all, however, was being reminded that she was heading towards the Dawnbringers’ leader… the man who terrified her most of them all.

As the lift slowed and the twin-doors reopened, Donna moved into the penthouse with leaden-weighted legs. It was grand and stately like that of a top government official. Oracle’s freshly shed superhero costume lay draped across his mahogany desktop. The man himself was adjusting the cuffs of his presidential suit, apparently having just switched into it.

Turning, he gazed at her from across the office. Merely becoming the center of his attention was like falling under the shadow of a rising cobra, its fearsome hood slowly unfurling in readiness to strike. Donna felt it unbearable just to have to look at him.

He… didn’t say anything.

“Yes? Is there anything you want?” he asked, flashing the faintest of smirks.

Saito’s heart nearly stopped. The man was feigning ignorance. He was playing with her.

Oracle took a few steps forwards, stalking like a panther. He had such an unsettling way of beholding her, an alien intensity that one could not place among others. The effect was even stronger now that they were lonesome, as if he had reigned it in while the other Dawnbringers were around. It… it… seemed almost transcendental. Like he wasn’t just looking at her body but also her thoughts, her emotions, and her fears. The sex-slave’s very essence was an unguarded vault for him to freely spy into. He could behold vividly the exact state of misery she was in, inspect its very nature… and he savored it fully.

“How are my subordinates threating you? I assume that everything is fine? Do tell if there is anything about your stay with us that you find uncomfortable,” he said, devilish with surface-level politeness.

Donna almost hyperventilated, chest bobbing in barely-restrained breaths. Never since her first day had her nudity made her feel this imperiled. She remembered how callously he has ripped the piercing off her brow. There hadn’t even been consideration behind it, just an impulse to hurt and then a quick implementation.

He could kill her at any second. All he needed was an impulse.

Donna dropped to the floor as if in the presence of a God, splaying her nude body prostrate at his feet across the sumptuous carpet. Her face was instantly at his shoes, planting worshiping kisses and laps upon their smooth texture. She venerated that footwear as if it was an icon. It was a groveling, pitiful, utterly degrading display — Donna undulating like a worm at his feet while orally glorifying his foot.

The man said nothing, merely raising his knee slightly so that she could get access to that grimy underside. Donna licked that sole as if trying to get to the core of a lollypop in record time, dragging her pink muscle against its minutely studded surface until her tongue stung and was dotted with dirt. Every lap was a painful rasp, the youth’s frantically pumping pulse making her ignore the unpleasant sensation. Doing this of her own impetuous made it feel extra demeaning. Despite fondling that dirty bottom like a dog, the teenager still felt his eyes bearing into her from above. It seemed like he was wavering between killing her or not… or at least that was what Donna panic-stricken mind imagined.

“You Ants are all the same… aren’t you? Just existing to be raped, ravaged and consumed,” he softly mused,

“Yes!” Donna agreed, pulling her face away from the shoe for a single, desperate moment to speak. “We are, Master! I deserved everything that has happened to me. Just for being so… weak and worthless! Who was I to even think I could measure up to the mighty Dawnbringers! I was stupid, stupid, stupid for ever coming here!” she exclaimed, suddenly slapping herself harshly across the cheeks several times.

There was something strangely cathartic about the self-inflicted pain. As if she deserved it. Kowtowed at his feet, she really did feel like a bug. There was a mortifying change within her, shifting from suffering due to what was being inflicted on her vs suffering because of being so helpless and useless. It was horrible. The mindset deflated her spirit. She felt less-than-human.

Somehow… he made her feel that way. Just being in his presence was enough to make her feel lesser.

“Back off,” he said, gently.

Donna sat back on her heels. They made quite a contrast. Her kneebound, naked and cowed — him upright, finely-clad, and casually vacillating over wherever to have her murdered.

“Tell me… Have you never orgasmed during your entire stay here? Or even experienced pleasure?”

The words were formed like a question yet it was so transparently clear that he already knew the answer. Of course not. Never once had she received anything that could be classified as carnal sensations. It was the lot of being a rape-victim. “No… Master,” she whimpered.

He unbuckled his pants. The girl needed no prompting to know what to do, even if he was the only one in the tower who hadn’t taken sexual use of her yet, if you included Echo’s frequent enjoyment of torturing her. She swallowed his emerging cock, enclosing soft lips around that rapidly stiffening bayonet and dragging her tongue across its bulbous tip. Instantly, she made it into as degrading of an affair as possible, choking herself on the man’s thick dick, making her blowjob as sloppy as her captors enjoyed. Spit leaked out around her lips and she started making nasty strangling sounds in the hope that her degradation would prevent the need for him to hurt and abuse her further. It was very debasing, yet Saito channeled everything she had learned about fellatio and belittling herself into that blowjob, allowing tears to fall freely as she did so. With Oracle’s flesh-stick plowing through her throat, there was no doubt that the youthful and once so innocent girl now considered herself a filthy sextoy for her former idols… She was too disgraceful to be anything else.

As she working slovenly on his stiffening yard, Oracle himself showed little animation. This was merely foreplay for him, a need to get his dick rigid before moving on to what he really wanted. Eventually, the elder superhero was satisfied and raised his hand. Telekinetic energy instantly permeated the air and within a moment Donna felt herself psychically grabbed and yanked upward, gravity having abruptly been robbed of its influence on her. This was Oracle’s terrifying power… the world’s most powerful telekinetic. To him, Donna might as well weigh nothing at all.

There was a bit of aerial maneuvering as Oracle manipulated her body, Donna spinning and flipping around for several rotations. Testing the flexibility of her limbs, Oracle made her legs go spread-eagle, prying those extremities apart so widely that Donna grimaced at the throbbing strain. He made her go upside-down as the aerobics continued, blood rushing to the youth’s skull. Apparently liking this look, he held her there, the legs flexing so greatly that they almost curved around to meet at her torso. It was excruciating and Donna started to go lightheaded to boot. She thought her legs were going to be gruesomely snapped off at the hips.

“I’ve always found that this was a fun position to kill people in. Ripping them apart in two. A woman’s pussy sunders like perforated paper, then the rip would grow more jagged and random the further down her body it went, journeying across the torso. It’s really quite artful,” he commented idly, casually describing bloody mutilation. He pressed harder on her legs with his telekinesis, and Donna wailed, feeling tendons and ligament creaking inside her underneath the pressure. “You’ve already stretched farther than most people can go,” he added. “Not bad. Now let’s see if you can be a good little Ant slut in this position as well.”

There was some pulse through the air. Donna craned her neck to gaze upward, and found a sight that didn’t surprise her half as much as it would have a few months ago… summoned right before her pussy and asshole were two psychic phalluses someone crafted of telekinetic force, their contours enormous and ribbed. Both were primed and ready to savagely slam into her holes. In this tensed condition, they right rip her right open!

“Four months a slave,” Oracle commented idly, “and not a moment of pleasure? Silly of them not to let you have one… just one… to let you know what you’re missing. But don’t worry, Ant… I’ll help you experience a woman’s pleasure.” And his eyes glittered as he commanded both of his summoned cocks to spear her at once.

The penetration cleaved open her tender cunt-lips and anus, both those pliable orifices unfolding wide. Amazingly, she was not dismembered, yet the burning pain consuming her nether-regions almost convinced her otherwise. Maybe Donna had become so well-fucked that her slut-holes parted like nothing… her body trained to be a whore for the Dawnbringers just as thoroughly as her mind had been. Those two cocks started pummeling into her, moving up and down out-of-sync. Saito had flashbacks of getting double-teamed by the twins… not her only double penetration she had suffered here, but still the most memorable… as her cavities were used for new purposes, getting hammered.

“Hmm. You take well to getting fucked. I might even think that you like it,” Oracle said.

A strange pressure mounted on her clit. The force was so direct and focused that it was like a palm rubbing against its nub. Suspended in midair and spread perfectly immobile, the sex-slave was forced into a few fitful spurts. A hot-zone emerged at that assaulted area. She had had sex without pleasure for so long now that its presence jolted her systems… and yet the bliss mixed incongruously with her jagged anguish, both blazing downward from those upheld loins in competitive streams. It was such a foreign sensation, making fresh humiliation creep all over her. Had she really fallen this far? Getting horny in a situation like this?

Oracle jerked at her legs, making Donna bellow with excruciating pain. It was a reminder that he was still on the cusp of rendering her a mutilated corpse. Agony or pleasure, life of death… either way, he was in control. All meanwhile, those telekinetic pricks still bludgeoned into her occupied rectum and twat.

She didn’t understand why that reproductive burn in her clit was coming to life in the first place. It never had done before when she was getting raped and tortured. It had something to do with the way he was looking straight through her, baring her innermost emotions and manipulating them to his liking. He nudged her particularities in this way and that, re-engineering her to be a whore. Now Donna would not just be a living sex-doll, but truly a cum-slut too. 

“Surrender. Let it happen,” he whispered like a ghost. She didn’t know if he meant orgasming or dying.

The young Ant was flipped horizontal, her out-splayed legs facing headlong towards his crotch. Floating through the air, she arrived close enough for him to grasp her hips. His dick jutted against her psychically pounded pussy, ready to violate her. That psychic prick vanished, leaving only her ass to still be supernaturally ravaged as Oracle grapped a fistful of her cheeks in each hand and plunged into her cunt. The all too well-known sensation of having a hot cock buried in her filled her mind… but this time, she was responding to the invasion, getting aroused alongside him. It felt unbelievably forced, in completely opposition to her sexuality, morals and wants all. It was a treachery of the senses. Michael had managed to turn her very own body against her.

“This is what you are, isn’t it?” he snarled whilst lurching his hips into her. “Just a fuckdoll. An ant cum-dump. Something for my subordinates to rape and throw away? Yes. That is the purpose of your life. Embrace it.” Slamming into her, the thrusts growing more powerful as he spoke the words, as did the telekinetic protrusion which kept skewering her ass. He was sadistically feeding off her misery like a colossal man-shaped leech. Donna was in deep existential dismay at the culmination of her torments, her soul catching fire and burning into blackened embers. This is was what Oracle did, crushing people. He had them pulverized and devoured. Who was Donna to ever think she could survive him? Tears flooded down her cheeks like the streams of mighty rivers. All while he kept hammering in his dick and bringing her precariously close to an undignified apex.

They had passed a point of no return. Donna knew that from now on she was going to orgasm no matter what happened. She was cresting her peak, trying to resist what she already knew was futile. Oracle grinned like a ravenous predator, face coming alight like some monstrous nosferatu who was about to feast on her very soul.

“Do you remember when I said I was going to take care of your parents, girl?” he hissed.

Donna’s figure stiffened with coldness, heart and mind ceasing to operate in mid-fuck.

“I did. They are dead.”

Horror distorted Saito’s countenance like melted wax. Her blood froze inside her veins. Her spirit seemed to abandon her completely… Nothing inside her wanted to believe it, yet… she could sense the horrible truth in his eyes.

“I killed them. Both of them. I broke into their home at midnight. They were sleeping when I arrived. I managed to sneak all the way up to the bedside before your father awoke—” he narrated.

Her parents? Dead?

“Your father died first. When I told him who I was, the weakling begged me to spare your life. I lied and said that you were already dead. He screamed and then I split him apart… exactly like this,” he continued, her outstretched legs jerking outward so that blinding agony engulfed her grief-stricken mind.

“Then I raped and killed your mother in their marital bed. She wept even more pathetically than you are doing now. Several times she cried your name. Though… at least she didn’t not orgasm when I came inside her!” he uttered, striking his dickhead against the entrance of Donna’s womb. 

And, her mind overwhelmed completely with horror, whatever mental lock had kept her orgasm at bay was ripped asunder. The youth’s climax came detonating through her body like an opened floodgate. It instantaneously swarmed over her very being, tinting the sanity-destroying heartache she felt over the death of her parents with thought-blotting bliss. Her horrible, hollow moment of purest grief was ruined, polluted forever, by Oracle forcing her to cum for him, her spasming cunt even clamping down around his rod as if thanking him her his murder of the people who had loved her most. During that squeeze, Oracle ejaculated as well, staining the insides of her pussy with hot and virile seed.

Through the climax she shook like a fish skewered on a harpoon and brought to surface. Being made to cum by Oracle was all-enveloping, all-consuming. She wasn’t even allowed time to linger on the sorrow of her parents passing. Those experienced were subsumed and robbed from her by the pulse of unwanted pleasure. That was the extent of this man’s evil. He was going to make her know that when it came to mourning her parents murder or climaxing like a slut on their killer’s cock, she had done the latter. It was a special sort of defilement that would stay with her for life, no matter how long or short it might last from here.

The orgasm lasted for a multitude of seconds, psychically prolonged. Donna trembled and writhed through the entire explosive fit. When it at last subsided, the realization came screeching at her like ten-thousand nightmares. They were dead. Legion and Rescue, Sam and Akiko, Mom and Dad… they were dead, massacred by the very man she had once thought a hero. Worse yet, the news of their demise that been met with the only orgasm sex had ever given her. 

The had been killed… all because she had sought to become a hero.

Oracle ceased all of his extrasensory activities and Donna plummeted onto the ground with a solid thud. She lay splayed-out on that sumptuous carpet like a corpse, matted in sweat and cum both female and male in origin. Trauma had frozen up her entire body. She wallowed in so much anguish that she could sense nothing outside her own head.

Calmly, Oracle tidied up his costume. He went over to his desk and sat down, pushing one button. A few minutes later, during which neither of them said a word, Baldur and a few of the other Dawnbringers arrived through the elevator. Cackling brashly as they entered, they were apparently overjoyed at seeing what their normally so aloof leader had done to their insipid Ant. No one moved to lift or carry Donna away. Instead, everyone marshaled around his desk, wanting to hear the old man give his report.

With Donna listening from where she lay, Oracle serenely went through his encounter with Legion and Rescue. The grisly deed was described in great detail, like a coach who entertained his pupils with stories of former glory days. The humanity of his victims was utterly ignored in the superheroes’ conversation, both reduced to merely a laughing matter. The leader spoke as if the two ex-crime fighters were just another pair of villains that needed to be slaughtered.

“Did you consider taking the mother alive?” Baldur asked. “You know. So we could have another sex-slave? I’m sure her and the Ant over there would make for a very entertaining team.” 

“Yes,” Oracle replied, snickering lightly. “But she resisted fiercely enough I had to kill her. Or maybe I just get overexcited in my later years. Who knows? Either way, the bitch had to be euthanized.”

They kept exchanging banter, drifting off into other subjects that related to their operations. Hearing them talk about their murder had been bad, but to have them so casually move on to other topics was even worse. To the Dawnbringers, her being orphaned was merely a five minute curiosity, not even something to bother remembering or thinking about by the time dinner rolled around. Through their entire informal talk, she remained lying there, unmoving. The youth finally felt dead inside.

“Hey Boss,” Baldur injected as the group was getting ready to leave. “Do you want me to throw this Ant down the trash chute? After all, that’s where she belongs.”

“I think that is a very fitting idea,” Michael replied, interlacing fingers with a smile.

Donna was grasped by the ankle and lifted upwards, head dragging across the ground as the man who she had once considered the epitome of virtue brought her over to that sewage-deposit. Opening its hatch, he hauled her figure into its hole, pushing and shoving so to get every limb in there. Saito did nothing to protest the disposal. She could find no reason to.

He dropped her without a word. Donna fell, crashing and bumping against the side of the tunnel, her plummet tumultuous and hurtful. Eventually, she crashed flat against a semi-filled garbage-container, landfall being mitigated by the junk-bags from Oracle’s office which resided there. Bruised and battered, she remained immobile like a carcass, the different colored-pupils barely moving as she stared at the side of the dumpster without truly seeing it.

They had buried her where she belonged.

***

Hours drifted by, yet Donna did nothing to readjust her posture, haphazardly scattered limbs growing numb. Donna had no idea how long she lay there. It could have been an hour. Or a day. Or even two. The length was not something that was perceptible to her mind. Time no longer mattered.

Her parents had died… because of her. They had been casualties of her foolishness. Her father had warned her about villains, yet she had been too blind to realize who the real villains were. There was a tiny part of her that was at least relieved that her mother didn’t share in her enslavement. It felt horrible to be alleviated by such an outcome. Yet at least it meant that Rescue didn’t have to suffer the ignominy of what she was undergoing. Her own suffering was over… unlike Donna’s. Her misery would just be going on without an end.

For some reason, she felt sure that Oracle would show no more interest in her. She had been expended. Burned out. He considered her used and discarded like any piece of trash in his penthouse. Hence her current positioning.

She remained immobile.

A far door opened. Two pair of feet entered and started tramping all over the room. They were lifting boxes and searching containers. After a while, one of them happened upon her.

“Ah shit, here she is!” Lancer exclaimed, hauling himself up over the container’s edge. “Man I never knew this place connected to Oracle’s skybox.”

Thermal hauled himself up beside him, peering down at her with narrowed eyes. “She dead?” he asked.

“Nah, still breathing. Filthy as shit though. Smells,” Marcus responded.

There was a moment of silence between them.

“Fuck fishing her out from there. So much garbage. Hey, Puppet owns us a favor for the tattoo. Let’s have him do it!” Trevor stated.

“Yeah!” Lancer replied.

“You blockheads!” Baldur’s voice rang out, coming from the entrance. “That’s not how you do it. Here, let me show you.”

The blonde man marched up to the container, hauling himself up over its rim.

“Hey dyke!” he barked. “Crawl out of there!”

Her inanimation ended. Her master had given her an order. Moving on all fours, Donna crawled across the stacked pieces of garbage. Arriving at the trash-containers edge, she lifted herself over it and landed onto the floor below.

“And here’s how you wash her clean,” Baldur instructed, zipping down his fly.

The twins instantly got the idea, unsheathing their peckers as well. Dutifully, Donna rose to her knees, presenting herself as their dedicated pissing-post. The three cocks pointed at her began to urinate, showering her in their golden streams. Her submissive figure became coated in layers upon layer of pee, the liquids torrenting over her skin.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Baldur sneered.

“No Master Baldur!” she spat, voice filled with self-hatred. “Thank you for pissing on me… Thank you for converting me from being a bad, dirty lesbian…” 

The emotion in her voice made the trio laugh. “I think the girl has snapped!” Lancer hollered.

“Yes, Master Lancer! I am a fucktoy… Please piss on me… I am stupid and worthless like all Ants…” she promptly replied.

Her foul outburst gave the men a lot of amusement. Donna didn’t even think about it anymore. Everything was instinctual. Obey. Degrade herself. Do anything to avoid pain or death. It was her life. It was what she had to do. She was an Ant.

“You wanna fuck her?” Thermal asked his brother after they finished pissing on her.

“Nah,” he replied. “She’s used pussy. Hey bitch, why don’t you fuck that instead!” the brother replied, tossing his head in the general direction of one of Savra’s automatons while he finished up his whizz.

“Yes, Master,” she replied.

“You’re gonna keep fucking that golem until we think of something else to do with you,” Baldur added.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“Hehe. Who knows when that’ll be?” Thermal grinned.

Having watered her with the entire contents of their bladders, the three men stalked off. Ashamed, Donna started crawling towards the sentinel. They weren’t even going to watch her and the golem fuck. They weren’t doing it for their entertainment, or because it would please or arouse them. They were doing it because she was there. Donna was just something they stored away when they didn’t want to play with her anymore. The trio even closed the door behind them with a loud bang.

Her soul wanted to collapse. The death of her parents felt like it should be the end, but it wasn’t. She was still getting pissed on and sordidly fucked. Her woeful existence as a sex-slave for the Dawnbringers just kept on going. There was nothing she could do to commemorate their demise. She was a body of pain. She wished she were brave enough to kill herself.

Presenting herself like a bitch in heat before the automaton, its slitted eyes came alive and started moving towards her.

Donna fought entropy within her. She couldn’t end like this. She had to continue being a deplorable fuck-toy. She had already given up everything that it meant to be human.

Onward survival was all that occupied her mind.


	6. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #5 - Unworthy

It didn’t matter that Baldur wasn’t paying attention to her… that was his place. Dyke lay between his legs anyway, sucking on his cock and being sure to get at least some of it into her throat on each bob. The entire time, she kept her eyes locked on his face, unblinking… alert for any sign that he was unhappy, or wanted her to do anything else. Keeping her eyes on him as she took him to the base of his cock was difficult… but she’d had a lot of practice over the last year.

Dyke had stopped even trying to count the days months and months ago… when her parents had died. The only reason she had any idea how long had passed now was that they had thrown a party for her to mark the one year anniversary. It had been one hell of an event… there had been movies, and games, and an open bar, and even a piñata. Of course she had been the games… and the piñata. They had hung her up from the ceiling and beaten her with canes until she had been coughing up blood, measuring points by how much they could make her spit up between Doc healing her. Mammoth had won after he’d broken four different canes on her. They had tied her to one of the pillars and seen who could get the most darts into her tits… Echo, of course. They had made her bob for dildos in a pool, fucking her ass while she drowned, and the winner whoever let her get the least plastic cocks out of the pool. Baldur. None of the drinks had been for her - they loved reminding her that she wasn’t old enough to drink yet - but most of it had ended up in her stomach anyway by the end of the night, pissed right into her. Compared to the games and the piss, the videos of her performing all kind of sex acts back from when she’d put up a fight almost weren’t so bad… if they didn’t make her remember.

Dyke knew there was a time she hadn’t been called that. That she hadn’t always been a fucktoy. That she had once had people who showed they cared about her with something other than violence and rape… but she tried not to think about it. Remembering was bad. Remembering hurt. That time was gone, and it was never coming back… and only pain lay in that direction. She’d become Dyke, the perfect sex toy, in order to survive… and it hurt too much to think about what she’d been before. 

That party hadn’t been today. It hadn’t been yesterday, either. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure how long ago it had been. At least five rapes ago… further than that, her memories got a bit hazy. It was better not to remember that, either. A year and more a dyke fucktoy… that was what her memories contained. That was where her thoughts went if she let them. Don’t think… just suck.

Her master’s cock was growing to its full hardness again. That meant it would be time soon. She paid even closer attention to Baldur’s face… she would suffer if she missed her cue.

In the last year, she wasn’t the only girl they had brought here less-than-willingly. Dyke didn’t know if the pretty blonde, or the redhead, or the other redhead had been Ants like her, or if they had just caught the wrong Dawnbringer’s eye… she never had had a chance to trade a single word with any of them, although they had made her clean the cum out of more than one of them before. After all, as they loved reminding her, she used to be a dyke. They were gone now, it seemed. Maybe they had died. Maybe they had just sold them off somewhere. No one told a whore like her anything… for her, it didn’t matter what had happened to them, save that when they were gone, she was the focus of attention. She knew she shouldn’t, but she always looked forward to the Dawnbringers finding a new girl. It meant that Echo would be distracted from finding ways to make her life worse for a little while.

A flicked crossed Baldur’s face… a bit of pleasure. Dyke sucked him extra deep, completely burying him down her throat before slowly, slowly pulling off… and then crawling until she was on top of him. Her cunt, even after Doc kept making it tighter, took his cock without issue now… it was a well trained hole. It really wasn’t that hard to make his cock fit… she just needed to keep pushing and not think about how much it hurt. After all, if she didn’t please him, this was nothing compared to what he would do to her. 

The cum already in her pussy made it easier, at least… this would be the fourth load she had milked out of her Master tonight. Balancing herself up on her knees while the distracted superhero played with his phone, Dyke sank down until she could grind herself down to get every last inch of his painfully huge cock inside her, then she started to bounce her hips up and down atop him. Not too fast… that would get her punished for trying to get it over with… and not too slow… that would get her punished for being lazy. There was a perfect speed, where the only punishment would be the feeling of his hated cock inside her. Over and over, she lifted herself up on her knees until only the head of his shaft was left in her tight quim… then let her warm cunt swallow his entire dick again. It was a hard task, but one she performed without any eagerness or distaste… it was no more or less loathsome than the rest of what Dyke suffered here. She had hours and hours and hours of experience pleasing Baldur like this… even when there were other girls here, he usually found an excuse to fuck her.

Right now, she was the only fucktoy in the tower… it meant that she was back to being Echo’s project. The blonde woman seemed to take her only pleasure in making Dyke suffer… it had been her that gave her the name, after all. Not a single day passed when Echo didn’t find something to do to her that took away one more tiny shred of comfort that she could steal from her eternal servitude… Once, Dyke would have considered her captors giving her a blanket to sleep with on the rare nights they let her sleep at all an almost unbelievable kindness… but when Echo had been the one to give her one, she had wept, certain the kindness was poisoned. Sure enough, the blanket was one of Doc’s toys that she'd had him whip up… a heated blanket that wrapped tightly around her in the middle of the summer, making her spend all night in fever sweats as she lost what little liquid they let her drink. The blonde had been more than happy to bring Dyke back to sensibility by pissing in a glass and making her drink the hot urine before she would unwrap her. Every single day, there was another one, like the woman really wanted to find every last shred of comfort and rip it away. Like she took it as a challenge to somehow show Dyke that no matter how low she thought she had sunk, there was always another depth further down.

Despite Dyke’s experience in riding cock, she was anything but relaxed. She looked at Baldur just as intently as she had while sucking him back to full hardness, whole body stiff with anxiety as she stared at her master with a fake smile… as alert as she could be for any sign that he was displeased, or wanted her to do anything else… or that he was getting close to cumming. 

Take today, for example.

One of the tiny kindnesses of spending the night with Baldur was that he would take off her collar. It had been an eternity since the Ant had been allowed to use her power for anything but pleasing one of her rapists, but they were still careful about it. Baldur, alone among them, was invulnerable… he didn’t fear her power at all. He probably took off the collar to make her feel even more powerful as he took her, let her know that she had the abilities she had once prided herself on, and that she was no less his fucktoy for having them. She didn’t care. When the animite was off her, it was like she could see… like being in a dark room when someone turned on a light. It almost made it worth spending the night milking the cum out of the man she had once idolized.

But Echo had taken that away now, too.

The beautiful blonde heroine had shown up today with a small black box… with two new piercings inside. Rings made of the the words “Dyke” and “Whore.” She had made Dyke thank her for the generous gift before putting them in, sealing them closed with a lighter. It had seemed like a small humiliation at the time. Barely a note compared to the oceans of degradation and pain that Dyke swam in every day. It wasn’t until Baldur had taken her to his room earlier and taken off her collar that she had realized the truth… that the piercings were made of animite. That she would never again know the feeling of her power… that she would be blind for the rest of her life. Echo had just casually stabbed a cigarette into one of her eyes, and she didn’t even know if her mistress understood what she had done.

Probably. Mistress knew everything.

Baldur scowled. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Dyke started to speed up her bouncing in the hope that it would please him… that it might forestall his wrath a few minutes longer. That was what her life had been reduced to… trying to avoid pain for just a little while longer, to stall it just a bit. Sometimes, she managed to keep him from torturing her with his cock for a few hours. She never managed a whole night.

Not fast enough. Baldur reached up and shoved her off of him, and Dyke fell to the bed already weeping. She knew what was coming. “Useless whore,” he growled, tossing his phone to the side as he rose and walked slowly around her. Dyke lifted her ass in the air as she bent over, hoping the tiny submission might make him more merciful. She already knew it wouldn’t work. She did it anyway.

"Your favorite treat, Dyke,” Baldur roared. “Getting fucked up your ass. Isn’t it your favorite?"

Dyke looked as pathetic as she felt as she craned her head back at him, her dark hair wild about her face, sticking to her lips… the color in her hair had long since grown out, and no one had bothered to replace it. Her face was bruised, beautifully battered by fucking her own face onto Baldur, his mismatched eyes dead and lifeless as she looked over her whip-marked shoulder at her master. “Yes, master…” she whispered. “Dyke loves your cock in her ass.” She couldn’t quite keep a trace of fear from touching her voice, the last bit of humanity she had left. Her lower lip quivered as she spoke. Her whole body shivered as he pressed against her. 

Baldur grabbed the back of her neck and shoved her face down into the bed. Dyke stared off into space, trying to think about anything else other than what he was about to do her body. She looked at the closed door, the moonless night, the glowing numbers on the clock marking it as 2:38 in the morning… nothing took her attention from the feeling her ass and swollen cunt exposed and facing Baldur, knowing she could do nothing but wait for what he was going to do to her.

“Stop telling me to fuck your ass, Dyke, and I’ll beat the shit out of you,” Baldur growled as he settled on the bed, and she felt the too-thick head of his dick brush against her ravaged cunt. It was so impossibly sore after hours of rape, but still she writhed against him, hoping to inspire him to fuck her pussy instead. 

Dyke whimpered as he lifted his dick up and away from her cunt, positioning it at the too-tiny entrance to her rear. Every. Single. Time. Hurt like the first time. She forced her mouth to work. "Fu... fu... fuck me... fu... fuck Dyke. Fuck Dyke in her ass. Assfuck Dyke. Dyke needs it... needs it in the... the... ass. Ass- Aaaiiii-" She buried her head in the sheets and gave a muffled scream as he began pushing into her relentlessly, slapping her ass in rhythm to Dyke's whimpers and profanities. It took a moment to make her yield… even after more than a year of having her rear raped, the constant healing made it harder than ever to let him in, even when she knew it would hurt less if her body would stop resisting. 

Dyke blubbered into the sheets as Baldur’s impossibly thick, cruel cock slid into her ass again. Doc had been with her just earlier today, so her ass was tighter than any virgin’s, and every single nerve on her body seemed to to be alive, pain radiating from his cock out to every inch of her body as he leaned in, his meat sliding into her inch by inch as Dyke’s face contorting into a beautiful mask of agony. Deeper and deeper and deeper…

Then his balls slapped against her raw cunt with a tiny spark of pain compared to the anguish filling her bowels, and she knew that he was all the way in. He held Dyke there, completely impaled on his cock, for a minute, just enjoying the look and feel of her entire body shaking and quivering in pain with him buried in the balls to her ass while helpless moans and cries spilling from her bruised, chaffed lips. 

Then Baldur slapped her ass like a blow from a baseball bat. "Tell me to fuck you, bitch."

"Ahhh... hurts... please... don't... don't...” she whimpered pathetically, unable to hurt helpself. “Ahhhh... ahhh... fu... fu... fuck... oh god... fuck da... da... Dyke's... oh god nono, fuck Dyke's ass oh god... please please cum, please fuck Dyke's ass."

"Keep it up Dyke," Baldur yelled at her as he dragging his cock from the depths of her ass. Her sphincter clung to it, like the embrace of a lover, like it didn’t want him to leave… gripping her rapists cock like a vise. Dyke couldn’t have disagreed more… but suffering was her lot in life.

"Slut," Baldur growled as he shoved his cock back into her excruciatingly tight hole. A normal man would have been forced to go slow through the sheer friction of her ass sheath, but not Baldur… Baldur was invulnerable, stoppable, undeniable. He could take her however he wanted, and fuck her as hard as he possibly wanted to, and she could do nothing but shiver and sob and scream in pain beneath him. In and out he shoved his cock, assfucking Dyke… practically driving his cock straight through her body and into the bed with how irresistible the force of his thrusts were. Baldur fucked her as brutally as ever, yanking his cock out of her bowels like he wanted to rip them from her body before he slammed back into her, using her like a sobbing piece of meat.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” Baldur growled as he grabbed his bitch by the hair and yanked her body up against his, thrusting up into her abused ass mercilessly… each thrust practically lifting her off her knees as inarticulate grunts and sobs and cries jabbering from her drooling mouth. He slapped her across the face, each blow landing like a punch. “Keep it up, whore!”

"Oh god," Dyke forced out, closed her eyes. “..fuck me master... fu... fuck me like... like the cock hungry dyke I am.” Tears slipped down her face as she spoke, some tiny part of her pride and dignity that she hadn’t been able to kill yet, buried deep down beneath the skin, weeping as she spoke for her. “I'm a whore… just a dirty whore for you, Master. Ra... rape me, rape me, rape me," she grunted in time to three especially vicious thrusts. "Hu... hu... hurt ma... me… teach me a lesson… oh god, I'm a slut…" 

Baldur let go of her hair and reached around and grabbed one of her bouncing, taut-skinned tits, squeezing it from below as he slammed into her. Dyke shuddered, a keening, inhuman wail escaping her throat as he raped her ass… but she never stopped talking. "Don't stop, Master. Don't stop fucking your slutty dyke’s asshole. Don't stop raping me, don't stop using me as your fuck hole, don't stop hurting your fuck hole.” 

Her encouragement was working, she could tell… Baldur was raping her harder with each passing second, grunting like a monstrous animal as he used her body like a sheath built to milk his cock as he pumped and pumped and stiffened and exploded inside of her, spewing searing cum deep into her bowels as he groaned in pleasure. It seemed like he would never stop, pumping and pumping and pumping shot after shot into her tight, sucking asshole while she keened and wailed and shook. His orgasm felt like it was going to stretch out forever, cock pumping and throbbing and spitting while Dyke bucked and writhed and twisted in his grasp. 

Then Baldur pushed her forward and off his cock. 

Dyke fell on her face on the bed, and every single fiber of her being longed to lay there, weeping, unmoving… to curl into a ball and hope she wouldn’t be noticed further. Instead, she pushed herself up to hands and knees, turned around, and pushed her face towards his dick. The obscene thing was even more horrible than usual, covered with cum and dark, filthy smears and bright red blood. 

She didn’t need to be told. She opened her mouth and swallowed it whole without hesitation… her soft, warm, wet mouth cleaning her blood and shit off of his cock and balls. That tool was going to be back in her soon, and she needed to do a thorough job of cleaning her ass off of it first… she remembered the five days they had let her be ravaged by a blood infection before having Doc cure it, when she hadn’t done a good enough of a job. They hadn’t stopped raping her during that whole time that she was pleading for death, either. It was a familiar taste… both her ass, and the dick beneath it. She’d spent many nights with it between her lips, sucking feverishly while Baldur slept, watched by one of Savra’s golems to ensure she didn’t try to escape. Baldur was the one who could let her do such a thing without any fear… trying to bite him was pointless, and everyone knew it. In truth, any of them could make her spend a sleepless night servicing them these days… she didn’t think she had it in her to even try again.

Mistress would probably stop her, anyway.

Before long, she stopped tasting anything other than the saltiness of his cock, and a tiny part of her screamed in horror that she really had sucked him clean, that there was none of that filth left to taste only because it had all vanished down into her throat. The rest of her was screaming in horror because she felt him growing hard in her mouth again. 

“On your back,” Baldur ordered.

Dyke pulled herself off of him and scrambled to lay down on the bed with her crotch towards him, spreading her legs invitingly. “Please fuck my dyke cunt,” she whimpered with no real conviction.

Baldur loomed over her like a demon. “You know what, slut? I think I will.” He settled his weight down on her, crushing the far smaller girl down on the bed as he took his cock in his hand and pressed it against her sore slit. Dyke moaned as he slid into a little bit more gently than usual - which mean it only felt like she was being fucked by sandpaper instead of by a chainsaw. 

“Please fa… fuck your toy,” she choked out. “This Ant dyke has only one use… I’m only still ah… alive because your cock gets hard…” Please no, please don’t, not this time, just this once…

“Kiss me,” he growled.

Tears slid down her cheeks, but she did it. Drawing her body up to press herself even more firmly against Baldur’s chest like a sheet of rock, her breasts squishing nearly flat and her new piercing pinching her nipples as she found his mouth and attacked it with her lips, Dyke forced herself to open her mouth and kiss him as passionately as she ever had… Elle? Emma? Erin? She knew she had had a girlfriend… knew that she had loved her… now even an attempt to remember her name was too painful, tied to too many memories of being a human being… Dyke had to shove the thought out of her mind as she passionately pretended to Love her master. 

And the entire time, he raped her. Gently, for him. More gently than he ever had. Part of her thought that maybe he felt the same… maybe he was coming to love her too. Love her holes and her tits and her whimpers… she didn’t really love him, did she? Dyke wasn’t sure anymore. He owned her. That was as close to love as she got.

Wait.

Mercy from Master was a rare thing. A thing to be treasured. One to show him she appreciated… and maybe he would show it more often. A small part of her was stunned that she was so jaded she could judge one kind of rape as more merciful than another… but she rarely got fucked this gently. Especially not by Baldur.

Wait. This isn’t right.

Dyke shoved the thoughts down as she kissed her master. That voice wasn’t her. That was Donna. That unhappy, miserable girl was dead. She had died with her hopes… with the people who had loved her. The only love Dyke knew was for her holes. Best to let her rest. She only ever made things worse.

Something is different.

Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!

He’s never this gentle.

Why wouldn’t she just go away? Why wouldn’t she stop… why couldn’t she just give up? Why couldn’t she just stop remembering that there had ever been anything but this?

Dyke closed her eyes and lets the tears fall as memories came back with the thoughts.

He’s grunting with effort into my mouth, fucking me as hard as he can.

Why couldn’t she just die already?

I can feel him sweating against my body. He never sweats.

A thrust rocked them together, grinding their bodies as one. Her nipples pinched painfully as they rolled against her fresh piercings, against the…

Animite.

Donna opened her eyes.

If she paused to think about it, she wouldn’t do it. It was insane. Every single instinct that had been pushed into her over a year as a jizzrag told her to not to make him angry… the bit of her that had longed to bite the cocks in her mouth, the part of her that wanted to resist, had died long ago… or so she had thought. She couldn’t think about it. She would have one chance. Only one.

She wrapped Baldur in an embrace. Kissing him harder, feeling his disgusting cock sawing away inside her ruined body, Donna wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him further into her as she embraced him with her arms, pulling them even closer to together.

He always took off her collar when he raped her.

She broke off the kiss, gasping in a single breath. 

“Now you’re learning, Dyke,” he grunted. Was he breathing heavier than usual?

She opened her mouth in a gasp, her face a twisted mask of agony she knew he would find enticing.

He didn’t know about the piercings yet.

She took another breath.

One chance.

Donna kissed her way up his collar bone to his shoulder, across the flesh to his neck.

One.

And Donna Saito, moving with strength and viciousness that she had thought fucked out of her a long, long time ago, closed her teeth on the side of his neck over the carotid artery and bit with every ounce of strength in her body.

And the invincible Baldur’s skin parted just like any other man’s.

Blood flooded into Donna’s mouth, over her face, down her throat. She gagged and choked… but forced herself to bite again, tightening her grip on his body with arms and legs both, holding them together in the most intimate kind of embrace.

Shocked, Baldur rested unmoving atop her for a long moment. Then he screamed and started beating at her. His fists smashed into the sides of her body over and over again, and Donna felt at least one rib crack… but they were the blows of a man. Not the invincible fists of a god. She held on tighter. The animite… the piercings in her nipples… she needed to keep them against his skin. If he got away from her, she was a corpse, or she would wish that she was. He battered at her viciously. She held on tighter.

Eventually, two of his hands found her neck and began to squeeze. If he’d had started like that, he probably would have crushed her windpipe, or at the very least choked her out… but his hands were weak now. Almost pathetically weak. Donna might have been able to force them off of her with her own hands.

She didn’t. She held her breath, black spots gathering in her vision, pain blooming across her body, and held onto her embrace for dear life as he bled and bled and bled onto her.

And then his hands slipped off of her neck and down to his sides. A moment later, he stopped moving entirely.

Dead.

Donna didn’t let go. She held on tighter.

She wasn’t sure how long she clutched to him… terrified that it was a trick, that the moment she let go he would push her off of him and heal his wounds, that he would become invincible again. Finally, though, she realized that there wasn’t any more blood seeping from his neck. That his eyes were open and unseeing. That the greatest superhero in the history of the world was dead. Sometime during the struggle, the two had rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. Blood covered Donna. She wanted to wipe her face. She wanted to lift herself off of his cock still inside her. She wanted to spit the metallic taste of blood from her mouth. 

Instead, she leaned to the side just in time to be violently sick all over the floor.

Baldur, the superhero idolized by billions, savior of the world, and depraved rapist, was dead… and she had killed him.

She had killed someone.

Donna threw up again. They hadn’t let her have anything but cum and piss to eat or drink two two days. There was nothing in her stomach for her to throw up. She did it anyway, her stomach rebelling over and over again until she began desperately swiping at the blood that covered her face, trying to get it off of her. She only made a further mess.

At last, she was laying on her side, staring into Baldur’s empty eyes and just feeling numb. Part of her longed for the oblivion she had sank into for most of a year… anything but needing to think, to feel. She didn’t know what to do… it had been so long since she had made a decision for herself. She kept expecting any second now, someone would come into the room… Thermal or Lancer, or one of Savra’s golems would come and investigate the noise. Someone would come and punish her… but long minutes passed as glowing numbers on the clock continued to count up, and still no one came. She had killed someone… 

Rot in hell, you bastard. Echo hadn’t stopped her. She hadn’t seen this coming. The evil bitch didn’t know everything after all. She could rot in hell, too. 

Donna rose unsteadily to her feet, forcing herself to step over Baldur’s body. He had a knife in his desk… she had seen it before. He had used it on her before… no, don’t think about that. Focus on the knife. This was going to be hard enough. It really was a comically large blade for her hands once she flipped it open, but it would have to do. She tried to think about anything but how much this was going to hurt. Then she gripped onto the Animite ring in her right nipple, slid the knife into the relatively thin ring, and began to saw. 

It was agonizing. Every single pull twisted her nipple no matter how hard she tried to hold the ring, stretching and pulling at her raw, sensitive flesh… She needed to bite down on one of the pillows to keep herself from screaming… but at last, the ring parted. One down, one to go. The second was even worse, now that she knew what to expect… but that thin ring of metal was all that stood between her and freedom. She would have cut off her own hand if that was what it took. 

Then the ring parted, and she all but ripped it out of her nipple, throwing it across the room… and she could SEE again. A thousand portal locations shone in her mind like beacons… places she could fit and places she couldn’t, safe places and dangerous places. She could feel how long a portal would have to be to fit beneath the desk, and how long of a jump it would be to get to the hall from where she stood. She didn’t need to make a portal for someone’s sick games, to please her captors. She could stretch her muscles. It was like a blindfold had been stripped off her. It felt like she could do anything.

For just a second, Donna forgot everything that had been done to her. She forgot that she had been betrayed by her childhood heroes, that she had been raped more times than she could count, that the most beloved man in the world lay dead at her feet and that she could taste his blood in her mouth. That her parents were dead because of her obsession with the Dawnbringers. That she was still in their lair and in mortal danger… Donna felt ALIVE.

Then reality came crashing back down on her and she started to cry. Not now… not now. There would be time to fall apart later. She needed to leave… now.

The only clothing she owned now was some lingerie and bondage gear, neither of which she would so much as consider putting on. There wasn’t anything else to wear for her… so she started putting on some of Baldur’s clothing. It fit her like a tent, but she found a black sweat shirt and pants that she could belt tight enough around her that they didn’t look like she was wearing a sail. Shoes were a lost cause, but she didn’t need them. She picked up the knife and Baldur’s phone and wallet, pausing for a second to unlock it by pointing it at his bloodstained face. Then, after a second of thought, she picked up the rings and collar, wrapped them up in one of his socks, and slipped into the hall as silently as she could.

She had crept through this halls once before… following Proteus into a trap. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. The clock said it was after four in the morning. Still, she opened a small portal in the main room, peeking through it and finding no one. With that done, she widened the portal and stepped through it, pressing the button for the elevator and watching with suspicious eyes as it opened immediately. Feeling like she was walking into a cage, Donna stepped inside and pressed the button for the lobby.

Floor after floor went by as she sank deeper and deeper into the building. With each one that passed she expected the doors to open and the Dawnbringers to be waiting for her… for Baldur to be waiting for her, laughing at how she thought she had managed to get away, how she thought an Ant could kill the invincible man. This time, she wouldn’t be captured. She could feel the outside of the building, without portal range. If they attacked her again, she wouldn’t make the same mistake a second time - she would risk the fall. Anything other than letting them take her again.

But then the door opened on an empty lobby. A portly, normal looking man dozing behind a security desk. An clear atrium with potted plants. Nothing else. Donna looked both ways, but saw no one. She opened a portal to the street outside with cars driving by thick even at this hour, and tasted the dirty, greasy, smelly city air on her nose for the first time in more than a year. The scent of trash and exhaust and stagnant water overwhelmed her… and it was wonderful.

Donna ran off into the night.


	7. Arc 1 - Gathering Dusk - Issue #6 - Deadly Nightshade

“And then I took the elevator down and came right here,” Donna said, tapping her fingers anxiously on the metal table. The chair was hard, the room was chilly, and the air smelled like cheap air conditioning, leaving her distinctly uncomfortable and cold… but it was the three police officers on the other side of the table that made it all worth it. The two of them, detectives Brisen and Kurtis, had listened to her story, the whole way through… the third, a Detective Larson, had arrived halfway into the story, taking notes as she spoke.

Donna had caused quite the commotion when she burst into the precinct covered in blood. She'd had several weapons trained on her before she could explain that she was here to report a crime, not that she had committed one. Photographs and several pressing phone calls had followed… then Donna had been taken into one of the interview rooms with a pair of detectives. Telling the whole story was incredibly painful… but having it finally spoken left her feeling somewhat… free… inside. Light, like a burden had been taken away.

“That’s quite a tale,” the third detective, Larson, said, nodding his head.

Donna nodded wordlessly. It really was. Baldur was dead. The hero that the world loved most of all. If she hadn’t seen him as he truly was, she would have been crushed to hear it. “It was… it was a long time.”

“The problem is… it’s bullshit.”

Donna opened her mouth, and then froze.

Larson stood… and stretched one hand towards Donna. Abruptly her muscles seized, and her eyes went wide as the detective kept one hand directly pointed at her. He was an Aberrant of some kind… someone capable of paralyzing criminals. 

“W- w- w…” Donna forced out. Making her mouth or even her lungs work was hard. “Why?”

“The moment you started telling your story,” Larson answered, eyes narrowed, “I decided to start checking up on it. The Dawnbringers are under police jurisdiction… we have access to their cameras. So I pulled the surveillance logs. I watched what happened, murderer.”

Donna forced her mouth open to protest, but stopped when she saw the look in the detectives eyes. Fury… and fear. No lust. No sadism. He didn’t look at her like a victim, or prey… he looked at her like she was a lion he was trying to force back into its cage before she ate him. She felt abruptly sure he wasn’t lying… he really believed she was dangerous to him. Had Oracle already realized what had happened and prepared for it? What had he seen on that camera?

“Cuff her,” he ordered the other two detectives.

Instinct told her that Detective Larson wasn’t like Baldur or Oracle… That he was doing what he thought was necessary. He probably would try to see it that she got a trial… and in a trial, it was more than possible she could prove that her story was true… it wasn’t like her body was without corroborating evidence. But Larson wasn’t the one in charge. Donna had no illusions that getting arrested wouldn't get her returned to Oracle sooner rather than later. 

She couldn’t be captured again.

Her options were limited… but not non-existent. She had lied to the detectives about one thing. She hadn’t come straight here. She had made herself a promise after all, more than a year ago.

Donna opened a portal beneath her and fell through it like a rock. She heard the detectives shouting, the sound of weapons being drawn… and a second later, the sound of gunfire. It didn’t matter. The moment she fell through the portal, the superhuman force keeping her stationary ended. She rolled hard to the side and out of view as she closed the portal as fast as she could, cutting off three of the chair's four legs as she did.

Then it was closed, and the sounds of shouting and bullets ended.

Donna lay on the ground, breathing heavily and trying not to cry. She could visualize the detectives running around, searching for her. If they had checked their files on her, registered for every Aberrant, they would know that she had to be nearby. She wasn’t. She had made a promise to herself… never again. So the first thing she had done after running off into the night was find a safe place, away from people, and prepared a waypoint. An escape. It was used up now… the first thing she would have to do was make a new one. 

The police were against her. The Dawnbringers would be hunting her. She needed help.

Donna reached into her pocket and pulled out Baldur’s phone. Once they realized that she had it, they could track it… but for right now, it would work. She opened it and began to search for what she was looking for.

***

“…entire nation is in mourning today after the announcement of the death of the superhero Baldur,” the radio said. “Speaking in front of the nation today, Oracle publicly swore to bring his killer, the supervillain Belladonna Saito, to justice for his murder.” The news broadcast took a moment there to play an excerpt from the speech he had given before continuing with the news. “A manhunt for the supervillain Nightshade is currently underway… the police ask for anyone seeing the woman to notify them and to not try to apprehend her - she is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Nightshade, currently #1 on the FBI’s most wanted list, marks the first active supervillain in New York City this decade, and the first time a Dawnbringer has died in battle since the fall of Midnight. The Dawnbringers ask that you reme-”

The radio abruptly cut off as Lucy Green pulled into her parking spot and turned the key, killing the engine and the sound at once. She slipped out of the car, cursing to herself as always as her leg ached, but she forced herself to be strong and not flinch. She didn’t see any of the brats around, but this was a school… someone could be watching, and it wouldn’t do to tarnish her image. She was Lux. She was invincible. Maintaining that image was even more important, since Baldur was gone now.

She was probably going to need to comfort plenty of the brats today.

She limped towards the school, leg aching with every step. Her parking spot was the closest one, closer even that the superintendent's or principal's, but it was still too damned far. Maybe with Baldur gone, the school would give into her demand to put a side entrance to the offices, so she could park right outside. Just a dozen steps between her car and her chair. That would be…

A glowing ring of violet light appeared just a foot in front of her.

Lux only had a second to stare at the ring in confusion before she heard running footsteps behind her. She barely had time to turn her head before someone hit her hard from behind, sending her sprawling right into that open portal. 

She found herself on charred floorboards, soot and dirt staining her perfect nails and white clothing… but she didn’t think too long about that. Whatever else Lux was, she was a warrior. A fighter. A hero. And her injury didn’t affect her power at all. She was in shade but there was light aplenty around anyway… she wove it into a barrier, a sparkling globe around her that was as hard as steel… if thinner than she would have liked. And then forced herself to her feet.

Donna Saito stood behind her.

The woman didn’t look much like the high school girl that she had counseled fifteen months ago. Her hair was was solid black now, as was her clothing… army boots beneath what looked like a flak jacket. The woman’s mismatched eyes were hard as she stared at her.

“Belladonna,” Lux gasped. “What-”

“Don’t you DARE use that name!” Donna spat as she took two steps forward and threw a sideways kick at the globe-like barrier. It stopped it, of course… but the momentum was still carried, and Lux needed to back up with the shield to prevent it from slamming into her like a nail struck by a hammer. “My father called me that. You don’t get to!”

Lux cursed beneath her breath as she felt the shield shudder under a second kick. The light here was too dim. She needed to get into full sunlight… then she would teach her former student a lesson. As the shield cracked under a third blow, Lux let it drop, reweaving the broken glow into a blazing shaft of hard light that she thrust towards Nightshade.

And a portal opened right behind it, and her own lance smashed into her from behind, sending her sprawling back to the ground.

“Who’s the Ant now?” Donna spat.

Lux lashed out again, trying to do it faster, unexpectedly. Donna easily danced away, slipping into a portal that opened beside her and closed just as fast. Then she was beside Lux and kicking her in her side, making her breath explode from her lungs, forcing her to collapse down.

She felt hands around her neck and kicked at Donna with her good leg… it didn’t help much, but then a second later, she was gone. Lux forced herself to her feet, ready for the next attack… but Donna just stood there, glaring.

“It was you,” she said coldly. Fury burned in her eyes. “You knew what they were going to do.”

“I… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lux protested, trying to form another shield. It wouldn’t come. She pushed harder and harder and harder… there was enough light around. She should be able to make something to protect herself with… but the light wouldn’t obey her commands.

“Yes, you do,” Donna said. Then she laughed. “You know the part that really burns, Ms Green? The part that hurts the worst?”

Lux finally found the collar around her neck from where Donna had closed it around her. Animite.

“I was going to call you for help,” the girl whispered. “I had Baldur’s phone. I was just looking up your number… and realized you’d been texting with him for years. He’d sent you pictures, for gods sake.” She shook her head. “Twelve thousand. That was all my life was worth to you. Less than half of the car you were driving.”

“I don’t…”

“You sold me,” Donna spat. “Sold me like cattle. Like you were going to do to Abigail. Yeah, I saw her, too… poor girl. Did she want to be a hero too? Is that why they wanted her? Or do those perverts just like furry ears and no one ever told me?”

Lux backed away from Donna, feeling the unstable wall against her back as she slid along it. “Donna, please… I don’t know… I don’t know what you're talking about...”

She heard voices. Other people. “HELP!” Lux yelled. “It’s Nightshade! Help me!” Two police officers came into view, and she shot a look at Donna, grinning. “Shoot her!” she pleaded. “It’s Nightshade! Shoot the bitch!”

Then one of the officers grabbed her.

Lux was so surprised she didn’t even struggle at first… not until her back was against his chest, one of his hands already groping her breast. “Wha-”

The other officer grabbed her arm as she tried to raise it and put his other hand on her throat. “Well, I’ll be damned. You really did it.”

“Of course I did,” Nightshade said. “Now, where’s my money, Aaron?”

The cop choking her stopped for a second, reaching into his pocket and pulling out three rolls of dollar bills, tossing them across the floor to the woman in black. “There you go. Twelve thousand, as promised.”

“You can’t do this!” Lux screamed.

“Shut up, slut,” Aaron said, punching her in the stomach.

“No, let her talk,” Nightshade said, walking up to the trio. “I want to hear this.”

“She’s ours now,” the crooked cop protested.

“You can wait another minute,” Nightshade said, glaring at him. “And in case you start thinking big, about taking two women for free instead of paying for one… you should remember what I did to you last time. I won’t hold back again.”

The cop visibly paled.

Nightshade turned to meet Lux’s gaze. “Do you know why I’m doing this, Ms Green? Did it even make an impression on you?”

“Fuck it,” the other cop said. “I’m hard as a rock. She can listen with a dick in her.” Lux’s eyes went wide as she felt the man reaching beneath her dress, grabbing her panties and ripping them off her body before she felt his hardness rubbing against her ass… and then a second later, she screamed as his dick broke into her.

“Donna, please!” she begged between cries.

But her former student wasn’t listening. “Quit your whining. It’s only one cock, and neither of them is half the size Baldur was… I know. I’ve seen,” she sneered. Nightshade pulled a phone out of her pocket… Baldur’s phone… and showed her what was on the screen. An address. Plain and simple. “Those narcissistic bastards… they picked me up from my home, and they couldn’t even bother to remember where it was,” she whispered. “So they asked. And you told them. That’s why you're here… in what's left of my house after they finished with it. My parents died here… and you killed them. They didn’t even pay you for that.”

Lux opened her mouth to beg again, but the raven-haired woman slapped her. “They offered me more than this,” she said, lifting the roll. “A lot more. Hell, I think they would have paid more just to put their dicks in you once. But it’s not about the money, is it? This isn’t for me… this is for my parents.”

“You can’t do this!” Lux protested.

“If only there was a hero to save you,” Donna said softly. “But heroes aren’t real, are they, Lucy? They never were.”

“Donna, please… you can’t let them do this to me!” Lux pleaded as her rapist started stroking faster inside of her, clearly about to cum. “Help me!”

“But if I don’t let them take you, you might never live up to your potential, Ms Green,” Nightshade said, her eyes hard as diamonds. She smirked as Lux cried out, feeling the cop cum inside her with savage grunts of pleasure. “I’m sure once they’re done with you, you could fill a valuable role. The world always needs more whores. Just think about how useful you’ll be to the world… more useful than you ever have been before.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “She’ll be real useful, alright.” 

“This is your destiny, Lux,” Donna continued. “I’m just glad I could help you find it.” She turned and walked away as the second officer pushed Lux to the ground, shoving his own dick into her pussy. She was long gone by the time he came, but Lux kept calling out for help anyway, certain the heroine wouldn’t be leaving her, certain that she couldn’t be doing this. Lux called out for Donna right up until the two corrupt cops began to drag her away, kicking and screaming… until one of them stuffed her ripped panties into her mouth.

***

Belladonna Saito, whom the world was now calling Nightshade, stood in what had once been her bedroom and listened to the rape of the woman who had betrayed her. She stood there, listening, waiting until the sounds changed from those of rape to those of a receding struggle as the woman who was responsible for what had happened to her faded into the distance… and she barely felt anything. She was numb, at last. She had tried so hard to go numb in the Dawnbringer’s captivity, without success… it seemed ironic to her that she should finally manage to do it now, after escaping. For just a second, a feeling of guilt tried to build… but no. She crushed that feeling mercilessly. It had been hard to watch, but Lux was guilty beyond question. The only morals that the universe ran on was the law of the strong, and the weak. The Dawnbringers, and Lux, had taught her that.

The guilt was the old Donna. The soft Donna. The Donna that had been so naive that she had gotten herself turned into a blowup doll and her parents murdered in pursuit of those hopes and dreams, all because she couldn’t see the world the way it was. Because she wanted to change the world. Stupid girl. The world couldn’t be changed. It was what it was… cruel, cold, and uncaring. And now that she knew the truth of the Dawnbringers, she knew it always had been. Leave Lux to her fate. She deserves worse.

She was all alone now. Even Em… When she had called the woman, she had cried and asked Donna how she could have done this before hanging up. Then her former girlfriend had called the police on her. Donna had loved the girl… had thought she loved her back. But Em had betrayed her without a second thought, too. Donna understood now… in this entire world, there had been only two people who had truly loved her. And now they were dead.

She was alone. She couldn’t bring them back… but she could avenge them. 

Slowly, she dropped Baldur’s phone to the ground and smashed it beneath her boot… it had served its final use. Then she sat down in the ruins of what had once been her room in the condemned, burned out house, and took out a notebook and pen. One by one, she wrote their names.

Thermal.

Lancer.

Puppet.

Savra.

Mammoth.

Gnarl.

Doc.

Nox.

Proteus.

Echo.

Oracle.

She knew that most of what she had known about the Dawnbringers before was wrong. She had felt Oracle in her head. Echo hadn’t stopped her from killing Baldur, or escaping. Baldur’s power had been able to activate on its own. Mammoth wasn’t just strong, he was unstoppable. There was more to all of them… and yet, also less.

Donna flipped between the names several times, taking them in one at a time… burning their faces into her mind. Then she began to write down every single thing she remembered about each of them. Everything they had said. Everything she had seen them do. Everything they had stopped her from doing. 

And one by one, she began to make plans of how to kill them.


	8. Arc 2 - Fallen Star - Issue #7 - A New Beginning

Lira could tell when her stepfather was almost home. It was his work boots; they made a unique sound in the hallway as he approached the door to their apartment. It wasn’t easy to hear them over the constant background noise of the city all around, but she’d had plenty of practice and incentive. The sound only bought her a few seconds, but that was enough time to get off the couch and hurry into her bedroom and out of sight.

“What the fuck have you been doing all day?!” she heard him bellow at her mother as soon as he came in through the door. Her words weren’t quite slurred, but it was easy to hear that he was already drunk. “I told you to clean this place up!”

“I’m so sorry, Randall,” her mother said plaintively. Leanna always sounded like she was on the verge of tears when she talked to her husband, and usually was. “I was busy preparing dinner and -” A sharp sound cut her off: he’d slapped her. Once upon a time that sound had made Lira flinch, but it was as familiar as the work boots by now.

“I didn’t ask for your fucking excuses,” he snarled, and slapped her again. “I asked you to do as you were fucking told!”

The conversation, punctuated frequently by more slaps as her stepfather criticized her mother, was nothing new, and Lira only half listened to it as she huddled in her bedroom, trying not to make any noise. Sometimes, when she stayed in her room and remained very quiet, Randall would forget about her. He’d just eat his dinner, drink some beers, and then either pass out on the couch or drag her mother into their bedroom, where there would be more familiar sounds for a while.

She’d left the light off, but there was still enough daylight to make out everything in her bedroom. Not that there was much to look at. She’d had a jewelry box on her dresser once. Nothing fancy, just some odds and ends her mother had given her over the years, most of it passed down from her own mother. He’d pawned that off first. The dresser was later. Almost all of her possessions had met the same fate eventually: her books, her stuffed animals, her backpack after he’d pulled her out of high school. Even her bed. He’d left her the mattress for a couple months, but then he’d found someone willing to buy it for a few cases of beer. Now she slept on some old blankets piled up on the floor. It wasn’t very comfortable, but sleeping in her room was better than the alternative.

The walls were blank, save for a few scraps of paper taped to them. They were all that was left of the posters of one of Chicago’s most popular superheroes, Frost. When Lira had been younger, she’d adored the woman. She’d even gotten one of the posters signed by her two years ago, when her mother had taken her to some publicity event in Millennium Park. That had been six or seven months before her stepfather entered the picture. Randall hadn’t been the one to tear the posters down; she’d done that herself, when Frost’s mocking smiles had become too much to bear.

“Lira!” her stepfather bellowed. “Lira, where are the fuck are you?! Get out here!” Today wasn’t going to be one of her lucky days.

She found him in the kitchen. Her mother was there too, her attention focused on cleaning up the clutter on the table, most of it left by Randall the night before. Leanna was a mousy, anxious woman who bore little resemblance to the jovial blonde beauty Lira had seen in old pictures. Some of that was age and stress, which had conspired to replace her youth with wrinkles and blotchy skin. But even without those, her scarred and burnt face would have been enough to make her unrecognizable. There were several fresh burns on her face where her husband had struck her moments ago, and her chin was smeared with blood from a now cauterized cut on her lip. Randall’s hand still glowed red.

Officially, everyone with a power, no matter how large or small, was labeled an Aberrant, but everyone knew the term Ant: people with superhuman powers that served little practical purpose. Like her fourth grade math teacher Mr Wilkins, who could change the color of a sheet of paper, or the Stephanie living down the street that could perfectly mimic any sound she’d just heard. Their abilities were still registered and tracked by authorities, but they were little more than parlor tricks for the people who possessed them. In a way, being an Ant was even worse than being mundane. At least a normal person could hold out hope that someday they would develop some amazing power of their own; if you were an Ant, you’d never be anything but an Ant.

Lira’s stepfather was a heavyset man of nearly fifty years, and at no point in his life would anyone have called him a beauty. His aberration was the ability to generate heat through the palms of his hands. As far as Lira had ever seen, they couldn’t get very hot, barely enough to warm up food. It was as useless a power as any other Ant’s, unless you were cold or the microwave was broken.

Or if you wanted to hurt someone. And Randall enjoyed hurting people.

“You don’t even have the goddamn kitchen table cleared!” he yelled at his wife, face red with anger. “I work all fucking day to support the both of you, and I can’t even eat my fucking dinner when I get home because the table’s covered in shit!” He grabbed Lira’s mother by the back of the neck and slammed her face first into the kitchen table, reopening the cut on her lip. Leanna screamed and squirmed as tendrils of smoke began to rise from underneath his fingers and a sickly, all too familiar smell hit Lira’s nostrils. “From now on, you lazy bitch,” Randall spat, leaning down to put his head right next to hers, “I expect this entire pigsty of an apartment to be spotless when I come home. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Randall, yes,” Leanna cried out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I promise!”

“And you will have dinner ready and waiting, and on the fucking table!”

“Yes, yes! I promise!”

Randall held her like that for a few seconds longer, just to show that he could, before releasing her. The large burn mark now on the back of Leanna’s neck looked nasty, and would need to be treated to prevent infection, but the woman knew better than to do that now. Instead, she merely redoubled her efforts to clear the kitchen table. Lira’s stepfather watched her for a minute, until he was satisfied that his lesson had been an effective one, then turned to focus his attention on Lira. “Took you long enough,” he said. “Now get the fuck over here.”

Lira obeyed, standing in front of him with her back straight and head up. Randall’s hand no longer glowed, but it was still sickeningly hot and sweaty as he caressed her cheek and fixed a strand of her blonde hair. “You have a good day, sweetie?” he asked, his tone almost gentle. Lira liked it better when he yelled. She nodded. It had been like most every day for the last year and a half. He didn’t want her going to school, where she might tell people what her stepfather did for fun, and he didn’t want her working a job, where she might earn enough money to risk running away. So instead she just sat around the apartment all day, waiting for him to come home. Like any other appliance.

His hand traveled down the side of her neck and over the ratty black T-shirt she wore. He’d sometimes talk about pawning off all her clothes and keeping her naked all day long, but she knew he wasn’t serious. Even in a rundown tenement like theirs, people would eventually notice a perpetually naked nineteen year old girl. That hadn’t stopped him from selling off all of her underwear though, and he didn’t bother replacing clothes that were worn out or too small. The many holes dotting her shirt revealed flashes of chest and stomach, and her nipples stood out clearly against the tight, thin fabric. Her stepfather walked his hand down her front until he was palming her left breast, his thumb making lazy circles around her nipple. “Did you miss me?” he asked as he groped her. She nodded again.

His other hand caressed her stomach, then slipped down into her jeans and between her legs. Lira resisted a shudder as a callused finger rubbed her slit up and down. “And what about your tight, warm cunt?” he asked, his face right up next to hers. Lira knew he could see the fear and disgust in her expression, and that he enjoyed them both. “Did she miss me too?” Another nod.

She’d had a boyfriend when Randall had first shown up, back when she was just a naive kid who believed all that bullshit about superheroes saving people in need. She’d liked Gregory, but there hadn’t been much chemistry between them, and their relationship had never progressed beyond some heavy petting. She wished she’d known better back then. Not that she thought Gregory would’ve helped her if she’d been putting out for him; Randall had nearly broken the kid’s arm the first time they met, and the coward had never shown his face around her again. But at least she wouldn’t be stuck with the memory of her stepfather’s satisfied grin the moment he’d confirmed that she still had her virginity.

The sudden sound of glass breaking startled the both of them. In her haste to clean the table, Leanna had knocked an empty beer bottle over to smash against the floor. Two seconds after the impact, she was already kneeling, picking up the shattered pieces with her bare hands while apologizing profusely, but she knew just as well as Lira that Randall wouldn’t be satisfied by that. Sure enough, he roared with anger when he saw what had happened, and kicked her in the side, causing her to fall over onto some of the shards with a crunch. “Stupid clumsy bitch!” he snapped, punctuating his words with another kick. “Stand the fuck up! Now!”

Shaking, Leanna obeyed, blouse torn and skin bleeding in half a dozen places from the broken glass. Randall pointed to one wall of the kitchen, and she nodded quickly, scurrying over to stand facing it, only inches away. She was already shaking like a leaf, knowing exactly what he intended. “Pants down!” he growled. Lira’s mother whimpered but obeyed, unbuttoning her pants and let them pool at her ankles. She wore no underwear either, and her skin was riddled with burns and bruises. Lira tried to focus her gaze elsewhere, but she didn’t dare turn away or close her eyes. He would be watching to make sure she didn’t.

His hand now a fierce red, Randall smacked it hard against his wife’s bare ass, the sound like a gunshot. “This one’s for not having the house clean,” he said, her flesh sizzling as she let out a choking, agonized cry. It had only been two days since the last time he’d disciplined her, and her half healed skin was still pink and tender. He let his hand linger there for a moment, then reared back and smacked her ass again. “And this is for being a stupid cunt who can’t do anything right!” A third smack. “And this is for being a disobedient twat who needs to be reminded of her place every goddamn day!”

Leanna cried out with every blow, but made no attempt to move away or stop him. She’d only ever done that once, the very first time he’d spanked her like this, just a few days after their wedding. She hadn’t known what he was planning to do at first, and after the first hit she’d spun around and slapped him, telling him hotly that being his wife didn’t make her his property or pet. His response had been to punch her hard enough to knock two of her teeth out, use some strings of Christmas lights from the closet to tie her down to the table, and then spank her like that until long after she’d begun begging for his forgiveness. By the time he’d untied her hours later, his seed trickling from all three of her holes, she’d been a broken woman. When he’d decided a couple weeks later that she wasn’t enough to satisfy him sexually, and he was going to start using Lira too, she hadn’t even tried to persuade him otherwise.

This was a much lighter discipline session than that first one, but he still spanked her more than twenty times before stopping, and Leanna was reduced to a sobbing mess by the end. As soon as she’d pulled her pants back up, she hurried back to the kitchen table and resumed cleaning up the bottle shards. Randall barely spared her a glance as he returned his attention to Lira. “Now where were we, sweetie?” he asked, his hand already back on her breast. “Looks like Mom is going to be busy for a minute, so why don’t you and I go spend some time together?”

Lira nodded, and allowed him to lead her into his bedroom, where she began to strip without waiting for him to order it. “See?” her stepfather said appreciatively. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’re so much smarter and well behaved than that worthless cunt of a mother you’ve got.” Once she was fully undressed, he pushed her gently until her back was on the bed and her legs dangled off the edge. He leaned over her, groping her bare breasts with both hands now while he kissed the side of her neck. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathed. “Not like that fat, ugly bitch back in the kitchen. That’s why I never hurt you, Lira. Because it would be such a fucking waste to ruin this pretty face of yours.”

She hadn’t always been so pliable. The first time he’d tried to rape her, she’d fought back with everything she had, forcing him to bind her hand and foot to the same bed he was molesting her on now. She’d been certain that someone would do something, that Frost or one of the other superheroes she’d spent her life idolizing were going to burst in at any second and save her. She’d believed in them. She’d held onto that faith even as he’d gleefully ripped away her clothing like she was a present being unwrapped, even as he’d mauled her breasts with grimy fingernails and kissed her with cigarette stained teeth, even as his cock tore through her hymen with only his spit as lubrication.

Lira didn’t remember when exactly she’d accepted the truth. Maybe it was when she felt the nauseating warmth of his seed being squirted into her, or when he’d rubbed his limp and sticky cock against her lips after pulling out, and she’d realized what he expected her to do. Or maybe it was when her spent and happy stepfather went to sleep beside her a few hours later without bothering to untie her, and she realized it was because he intended to use her again in the morning. But eventually it had sunk in that she was on her own. No one was coming to help her. And why would they? She wasn’t anyone special. She was a complete nobody, just another poor kid living in a Chicago slum. None of those heroes knew what was happening to her, and they wouldn’t care if they did.

She’d still fought back the second time, but she’d done so knowing it wasn’t going to work. She’d resisted even less the third time, and the fourth. By the time she’d been his teenage fleshlight for a week, she didn’t bother at all. She’d accepted that he was stronger than she was, and that that gave him the power to treat her however he liked. It was easier when she didn’t pretend that her own feelings mattered, and just did what he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Lira had lost track of how many times he’d raped her since then. She laid motionless on the bed while her stepfather continued complimenting her, her eyes fixed on a single point in the ceiling. As long as she focused on that point, let herself think on nothing else, it was almost like she wasn’t even there in the room. Someone else was tasting whiskey and tobacco on Randall’s breath as he kissed her hungrily. Someone else was crushed against the mattress by Randall’s weight as he climbed on top of her. Someone else whimpered softly as Randall’s cock penetrated her.

“Do it,” he urged as he began to thrust in and out of the girl. “You know what I like.” He smiled as her skin began to glow softly. “That’s it. You look like an angel like that. My perfect fuckable angel.”

Whoever the girl on the bed was, she was just another worthless Ant like Lira. Another person who would never possess any real power. In a world full of super powered people, with more appearing every day, all she could do was light up her skin, and all that was good for was helping Lira’s stepfather enjoy raping her even more.

It didn’t take him long to finish. It never did. Before five minutes had gone by, his beer belly was jiggling as he pounded the girl, already on his last legs. He clutched her thighs as he came, pulling out a moment before to splash her stomach, chest, and face with droplets of cum. Then he crawled forward until he was crouched directly over the girl’s head, wanking himself to wring the last few drops out. She opened her mouth obediently to catch them.

“So fucking beautiful,” Randall repeated when he was done, running a hand through the hair that had pillowed around the girl’s glowing head. “Especially your hair. You have such perfect golden hair, Lira.” Lira could have corrected him, informed him that it was some other girl’s hair he was stroking, but she was too busy focusing on the ceiling. “See what it does to me?” he said, showing her how his cock was already beginning to stiffen again. “You sexy little slut.”

He used the girl on the bed once more, again finishing on her instead of in her. Randall had told Lira once that the only thing he hated more than kids was condoms. This was his way of avoiding both, though it wasn’t particularly effective, and sometimes he got too worked up and couldn’t be bothered to do even that much. Last year Lira had twice discovered something growing inside of her. She’d taken care of it both times.

Randall left her still half on the bed, his sperm soaking her bare skin as its glow faded way, to head back to the kitchen to yell at Leanna some more and eat his dinner. Lira didn’t bother to get dressed after standing back up, using the opportunity to take a shower instead. Her stepfather often liked to join her when she showered, to shampoo and rinse her hair himself like she was a doll before bending her over or forcing her to her knees. But he was busy in the kitchen, and Lira was able to scrub herself clean without any interruptions. The shower water washed away her tears as she worked.

Lira didn’t notice the warmth at first, mistaking it for the heat of the shower. It wasn’t until she turned off the water, less than three minutes after she’d turned it on - Randall would be furious if she used up all the hot water - that she noticed the sensation. It was strange but not unpleasant, a warm feeling in the pit of her belly like she’d just drunk something hot. She touched her stomach, puzzled, and wondered if Randall’s method of birth control had failed yet again.

As she focused on the warmth, she felt it suddenly shift inside her and break apart, the sensation running down her limbs. Surprise made her lose her balance and stumble, slipping on the wet floor. There were no handholds in the shower stall, but instinct made her grasp blindly for one anyway as she fell. Somehow she found something, catching herself just before she struck the ground. Slightly out of breath, she turned to see what had saved her… the wall.

She’d driven her hand straight through the wall.

Lira pulled her hand out slowly, expecting to see blood, but there was only bits of plaster and insulation. It didn’t even hurt. She looked at her undamaged hand, flexed it, feeling that strange warmth inside it. Then she straightened up and slowly reached out to grasp the stainless steel shower curtain rod with both hands. It bent easily in her grip.

Lira stood silent and still for a long minute, looking at the rod. Then she turned the shower back on, and basked in it until the hot water was gone. She wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom, drying her hair and getting dressed in her bedroom. Her warmth had become far less substantial after bending the curtain rod, but she could still feel it in her faintly, and it was slowly building. By the time she left her room and walked into the kitchen, wearing the closest items she had left to decent clothing, it felt more tangible than ever.

Her stepfather was still there, seated at the table, tearing strips off a roast chicken with one bare hand. His other held a half empty bottle of beer, and two newly emptied ones sat on the table. The television was on in the other room, some news report playing, and he was watching it through the open door. He glanced up at Lira as she entered, and belched once, but remained otherwise focused on the TV. Her mother kept quiet in a corner of the room, trembling slightly. She would get to eat only after he’d had his fill. Unless he was still angry with her, which he probably was. As he often liked to remind her, especially when he knew that her daughter was listening, disobedient bitches didn’t deserve anything but cum in their bellies. Judging from her stained lips, he’d already fed her the only dinner she was going to get that night.

Lira took a deep breath.

“Get the hell out!” she screamed, putting every ounce of hatred that she felt for her stepfather into it, for this vile, greasy animal who’d taken so much from her. The force of the exclamation rolled out like a shockwave, making both empty beer bottles fly off the table and shatter against the wall. “Get out!!”

Randall was too drunk to notice what had happened to the bottles. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, slut,” he snarled, still working on a mouthful of chicken. He rose up from the table, legs unsteady. “Just cause I don’t wanna mess up that pretty face doesn’t mean you can treat me with disrespect.” Both his hands were already glowing a deep red.

Lira didn’t bother to dodge as he came at her. She didn’t know if this strange new power would protect her, and she didn’t care. She was done ever backing down from him. Randall seized her left arm, and for a moment the grip was painful, but then she felt some of her warmth coalescing there, and the pain vanished. Randall’s smug grin slowly faded as he realized that his hold on her wasn’t having the intended effect. He looked down at her arm, staring in disbelief at the way it refused to burn. She waited until he looked up to meet her eyes, the first flickers of fear present in his gaze.

She broke his jaw with the punch, and sent him skidding across the kitchen floor.

Lira strode forward and kicked him in the ribs as he crouched on all fours. It held none of the unreal strength her punch had, and Randall groaned but otherwise showed no reaction. She realized that her warmth was almost gone again, but as she focused on it, she felt it shift inside her. She imagined it moving to her leg and felt it obey, withdrawing from the rest of her body to gather there. Her next kick shattered several ribs.

“I said get out!” she yelled, and though it lacked the raw power from before, her stepfather flinched at her words.

Randall rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet, blood dripping from his busted ribs and broken jaw. There was sheer terror on his face now as he stared at her. Lira had never seen anything more satisfying. She took a single step towards him and he whimpered, a dark stain spreading at the crotch of his pants. “Leave,” Lira said, more quietly than before but just as fierce. “Now. And never come back. If I ever see you again, I will kill you.”

Her stepfather didn’t bother saying anything. He just stumbled away, panting heavily as he flung open the door of the apartment and disappeared. Lira listened to the sound of his work boots fade away.

“Thank you,” her mother whispered, tears in her eyes as she came forward to grasp her daughter’s hands. “You… oh, my baby, this is a miracle! You saved us! You…” Her voice trailed off as she finally noticed the hatred in Lira’s expression.

“I was talking to the both of you,” she said. “Leave, or I’ll throw you through the goddamn door myself.”

“But, but…” Scared and confused, her mother looked at her helplessly.

“You’re the one who brought him here,” Lira said, biting off each word. The warmth was already returning, and some part of her longed to use it again, to smash the woman to pieces with it, but she resisted. Barely. “You brought him here, and you let him rape me. You let him rape your daughter. You’re even worse than he is. Now leave.”

After they were both gone, Lira grabbed one of her stepfather’s beers from the fridge. He’d once threatened to beat both women black and blue if either touched them. It tasted awful, but that wasn’t the point. She nursed it as she sat on the couch, relaxing in her quiet apartment and idly playing with her warmth, practicing sending it to different parts of her body, or letting it spread to fill her from head to toe. She didn’t really care to stay in this apartment, she decided. She’d go find herself a nicer place to live tomorrow. After all, money wasn’t going to be much of a problem anymore.

The television was still on, playing the same news report. “Billions are in mourning today as news of the tragedy spreads around the world,” a female newscaster was saying. “Thirty two nations have already announced plans for a state funeral to honor Baldur’s memory.”

Baldur was dead? Lira let out a low laugh. The greatest hero in the world, the most beloved man in history, had been murdered in his own home. Once she would’ve grieved as hard as any of the teary faces on the broadcast. Even the newscasters were affected, wiping away tears as they talked about how the Dawnbringers would be holding a public service for him soon. But now the news was just funny. He’d been as useless as all the other heroes, and now he was gone and she was still here. The TV was showing a picture of his purported killer, a young woman who looked only slightly older than Lira. The media already had a name for her: Nightshade. Lira raised her beer bottle in a salute. “Asshole probably had it coming,” she told the picture. “Cheers.” She drained the bottle, and then threw it against the wall.

Hundreds of heroes out in the world, and not a single one had lifted a finger to help her, no matter how many times she’d prayed for it. It still made her sick to think about her faith in them. If she’d known back then that nobody would ever come save her, maybe she would’ve done a better job fighting against Randall that first time he’d taken her. Maybe she wouldn’t have had so many sleepless nights curled up on her blankets or being spooned by that pig in his bed, wondering just why it was that she didn’t deserve to be rescued like everyone else.

But none of that mattered anymore. Heroes didn’t matter anymore. She had the power to help herself now. She could do whatever she wanted, and if any of those bastards calling themselves heroes had a problem with that, well… Lira smiled. She wouldn’t mind the chance to show them exactly how she felt about them.


	9. Arc 2 - Fallen Star - Issue #8 - Disillusioned

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Flint said for the fifth time that morning as he sat in the drivers seat. Then the boy yelped as Kell, sitting in the passenger seat next to him, smacked the back of his head. “Wh-what was that for?!” he whined.

“Because I told you to stop jinxing us,” the dark haired teenager growled. He was half a head shorter and three years younger than Flint, but looked like he had twice as much muscle as his pudgy, sandy haired companion. “You do it again and it’ll be my foot up your ass next!”

Flint rubbed the back of his head and looked like he was about to protest further, but he froze when Lira leaned in between both seats from where she sat in the back and clapped her hands down on their shoulders. “Boys, boys,” she said lightly. “Should we reschedule this so you two can go wrassle in a mud pit somewhere?” Kell tried to squirm away from her grip, but she tightened her hold on him slightly, making him wince, though he kept from crying out. “Well?”

“No,” he said sullenly, after it was clear that she wasn’t going to let him go without an answer.

“So you’re going to quit your whining and be professionals?” she asked in the same cheerful tone, emphasizing the last word with another squeeze of her hand. This time he did cry out.

“Yes!”

“How about you, Flint? You gonna keep jinxing us?”

“N-no,” the sandy haired boy said. Unlike Kell, she was barely touching him, but he still looked about five seconds away from breaking down and blubbering.

“Good!” Lira said brightly, and released both of them. Kell looked back at her with a sneer but said nothing. Flint just slumped down further into his seat, shoulders hunched like an wounded, oversized puppy.

“Are you sure we need both of them?” Grace asked, rolling her eyes. The red haired girl sat next to Lira with her legs crossed, wearing a bored expression. Her fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the armrest. “Or either? You and I could just do this ourselves.”

Flint looked as though he’d like nothing more, but Kell twisted around in his seat against to scowl at them both. “You want to leave me in the car, you go ahead, but I still get my cut, understand?”

“Nobody is getting left in the car,” Lira said. “We’re all gonna play our parts, get freaking rich, and then do whatever we want. Me, I’m heading somewhere with nice beaches.”

“I’d rather have some nice bitches,” Kell said. He was looking across the street, where a tall blonde with a celtic knot tattoo and not much else loitered by the hotel. She’d been trying to pick up customers for the last hour, and looked absolutely terrified now that she’d found some: four young men who stared at her like wolves admiring a rabbit. One of them already had his hand under her shirt, feeling up her tits in broad daylight as he talked to her. Lira couldn’t hear most of it, but she caught something about a ‘group discount’. The girl’s face fell, but the man groping her did something that made her jump, and she quickly nodded her head. She turned towards the hotel, but one of them laughed and stopped her, pointing instead to the alleyway next to it. She looked even more miserable now, but she followed the four men as they walked into it, trailing behind them like a beaten dog.

“You can have all the store-bought pussy you want,” Lira told him, “after we get this done. He’s going to be out soon; everybody remember what they’re doing?”

“I-I’m setting up eyes at the entrance and in the hall,” Flint said. Once he marked a location, he could see and hear from it as though he was standing right there, and without a trace. Unfortunately, the more eyes he had up, the more jumbled everything became. Any more than two and he usually lost his lunch. Nobody in the car liked to talk about how they’d ended up on the streets, or what their lives had been like before, but Lira would’ve bet everything they were planning to steal today that Flint had grown up somewhere soft and rich. He was useless when it came to any kind of physical labor, a shameless coward when there was even a hint of danger around, and had all the street smarts of a woodpecker. But for all that, he was reliable, in his own way. He’d never tried to steal from Lira, never went behind her back, never had any problems taking orders from a woman. He was someone she could depend on, as long as she didn’t ask him to do anything brave or particularly difficult.

“I’m tunneling through the wall, and then into the safe, assuming Grace can actually find it,” Kell said. He was a misogynistic scumbag who didn’t like Lira any more than she liked him, but he knew how to work a job, and he understood that they needed each other. Lira’s power was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. Kell, on the other hand, was a master of breaking and entering thanks to his aberration; his touch could dissolve non organic matter. It wasn’t particularly quick, and it left a mess behind, but it was also silent, and could get through just about anything short of animite.

Grace gave the scowling teen a look as she adjusted her braid. “Watch your mouth. It’s not too late to replace you with a cordless drill.” Unlike Flint, who looked like he’d grown up in the lap of luxury, the redhead looked like she’d never left. Even now, sitting in the car with them, she looked more like a lady being chauffeured than an equal partner in crime. The expensive bracelets sparkling on her wrists didn’t help, but she didn’t wear them out of vanity. She was a dowser, who could touch any material and detect if there was more of it nearby. Both bracelets were studded with bits of diamond, sapphire, gold, emerald, and other precious metals and gemstones. Whatever valuables were up there, she’d find them.

None of the three were much more than Ants, but they were the best Lira had found so far in the year that she’d been on her own. Together they’d hit a few jewelry stores, sneaking in at night to raid the place for everything they could carry, but Lira was getting sick of small jobs. It was better than robbing bodegas and gas stations, the way she’d gotten by for the first few months, but it was still a pain. With any luck, this job would leave her set for years.

This was hardly the luxurious life she’d envisioned for herself ten months ago, but it beat being her stepfather’s toy by a country mile. Freedom had been an exhilarating concept for a girl who’d spent a year and a half as a prisoner in all but name. She’d immersed herself in it at first, glorying in the ability to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, but it hadn’t taken long for her personal anarchy to grow stale. Endless booze, drugs, and parties sounded much more fun in theory than they were in practice. She’d discovered very quickly that she couldn’t get drunk, no matter how strong the alcohol, and drugs didn’t do much more than make her jittery. And the parties… every one she went to was full of leering, horny guys looking to fuck her. She hadn’t gotten out from under Randall’s thumb just so another douchebag could claim her. She’d had to break more than a few broken bones here and there before everyone got the message that she wasn’t interested.

Crime was similarly disappointing. The first time she’d robbed a convenience store, it had been thrilling. The tenth time it had been a chore. She couldn’t do anything bigger without drawing attention to herself, and she wasn’t stupid: there was nothing superheroes found more dangerous than people like her, who didn’t have to grovel and put up with their shit anymore. They’d try to grind her back down into the dirt as an example to others, probably label her a supervillain and give her some ridiculous name in the process. Once she entered the spotlight, they’d be hounding her for the rest of her life.

They weren’t going to get the chance, though. She was going to put all of that behind her today. By this time next week, she’d be in a different state, maybe even a different country, sporting a new name and pockets stuffed with cash. She wouldn’t even have to be alone - Grace was going to come with her. For whatever reason, the redhead rarely treated Lira with the same iciness that she reserved for others, and the two of them had bonded over their shared circumstances, both past and present; Grace didn’t talk about her old life any more than anyone else did, but Lira had gotten to know the woman well enough to understand that her home situation must have had some ugly similarities to her own. In the months that they’d known each other, she’d become the closest thing Lira had to a real friend, and when they were alone together, she could almost pretend that she had a normal life again.

It took about another hour of tense waiting, but finally the moment they’d been waiting for arrived: a man in a white suit exited the hotel, where a limo was already pulling up with perfect timing. His dark hair was beginning to turn silver, and he had the flabby physique of someone who’d never gone hungry or had to work for a meal, but his eyes were hard and sharp. Glittering rings adorned all ten of his fat fingers, but Lira knew that they were only a fraction of the ones he owned. “There he is,” she hissed, excited. Antonio Serafini was one of the richest men in Chicago, and he probably hadn’t come by a dollar of it honestly. Not that Lira cared about that. What mattered was that he spent every Friday evening carousing in one of the city’s casinos. For the next few hours, his penthouse would be empty. He was known for his love of rare and expensive jewelry, and Lira was confident that whatever he might have stored up there would be worth more than a hundred dinky jewelry stores.

“Hold up a minute,” Kell said. “The whore’s still in the alley.”

Lira swore softly. “Alright, I’ll go check it out.” She got out of the car and crossed the street, trying to look as casual as possible as she entered the dark alleyway. She stepped across a discarded newspaper on the way that caught her eye, its large print headline proclaiming that yet another Dawnbringer, Gnarl this time, had been murdered by Nightshade. Lira had no more love for villains than she did for heroes; they were more honest about being assholes, but they were still assholes. Everyone talked about the supervillain these days like she was the second coming of Midnight or something, but Lira didn’t see it. As far as she was concerned, she was no better or worse than the rest of the supers running around. Like all the others, she was just using her power to let her do whatever the hell she wanted. The only thing that set her apart was that what she wanted was to kill heroes.

Kell was right: the whore was still there, along with all four of her customers. None of them seemed to notice Lira as she approached, too focused on what they were doing. She paused before she got too close, just watching for now. A fight might draw spectators, which was the exact opposite of what she wanted. Hopefully they were almost done, and she could just wait them out.

The girl was on her hands and knees, giving one of the men a blowjob. From the amount of cum smeared across her face and dribbling down her legs, she’d already been used at least once by all four of them. “Fuck me, man,” said the one getting his dick sucked. “This is why I told you guys not to get all excited just cause you spot some new pussy. Stupid bitch doesn’t know how suck cock yet.” He pulled his cock out of her mouth and slapped her cheek with it. It wasn’t a hard blow, but the blonde flinched like she’d been punched.

“That’s why I told you to just jam it down her throat,” said one of the others. The three of them were loosely gathered around the other two, enjoying the show. “She’s so new she’s still got a gag reflex. The slut will thank you for helping her get over it.” He stepped behind the girl and rubbed his stiff cock up and down her ass crack. “Besides, she’s way tighter than our usual fucks.”

The girl froze as he settled his prick against her asshole and began to push. “You, you can’t do that,” she whined, trying to wriggle away from him. The man she was sucking off wrapped her hair around his fist and yanked it like a leash to make her hold still for his friend.. “We agreed p-pussy and mouth only, no anal!”

The one behind her snickered as he kept trying to work himself into her ass, temporarily stymied by the way she was clenching to keep him out. “And what the fuck are you gonna do about it? We agreed to wear condoms too, but all you did was cry when we rawdogged you. You wanna tell your pimp you were dumb enough to let four guys use all your holes for free, go ahead.”

“F-free?!” she said, looking like she was about to burst into tears. “No, puh… please, I need the money!”

“Then you’re gonna stop being such a bitch and let all four of us enjoy your ass,” he said. “If you can behave, and put some effort into the cock sucking, we’ll consider paying you when we’re done. Start by relaxing this shitter so I can get to work hosing down your guts.”

The prostitute didn’t look like she believed him for a minute, but she didn’t have much choice. “Okay…” she said sadly. “Just… just please go slow… please… I’ll try my best to make it good for you if you go slow, I promise…” She scrunched her eyes shut in concentration, whimpering a little as the head of his cock began to find purchase inside her.

“Yeah? You don’t want me to ram it in like this?” He grabbed her hips and slammed his own against her, making her scream as his entire length was buried in her in the span of moments. “Ohhhhhh, fuck yeah!” he exclaimed, continuing to hammer away at her rectum with sharp thrusts. “I know this tightness! We got a virgin ass back here!” His friends all groaned, and one of them called him a son of a bitch. “Sticks and stones, fuckers,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, she’ll still have some tightness left after I’m done breaking this hole in!”

The whore’s screams cut off as the man at her front pulled her head to his crotch, forcing his dick down her throat. Her cries were quieter but no less urgent or panicked as he shoved himself in deep, making her gag. “Time to stop being so fucking lazy,” he told her. “I want you to swallow my cum before he finishes in your ass. You fuck up and I’ll beat your butt black and blue with my belt when it’s my turn, got it?” She moaned at his demand but didn’t argue, her lips pressing tight around him as she began bobbing her head, fucking her throat on him.

Lira silently cursed the girl. It sounded like they might be fucking her for hours. She wasn’t going to wait a whole week to try this job again. “Can’t imagine why a bunch of charmers like you have to pay for pussy,” she said cheerfully, drawing their attention for the first time. “You mind finding somewhere else to pound her?”

One of the men not fucking the whore hooted as he noticed her. “Damn, we got a rainbow bitch joining in now! This a two for one deal?”

Lira ran a hand through her multicolored hair and smiled. Changing her hairstyle was one of the first things she’d done after becoming free. She wore it in a mohawk now, dyed in every color of the rainbow. It regularly drew looks, which was the entire point; she was done being one of the faceless people getting stepped on by the ones in charge. She was one of the ones in charge now. “I’m more than you can handle, boys. But you want a piece, you go right ahead and try.”

He did, grinning eagerly as he came closer. “Tits ain’t too bad,” he said, looking her up and down with hungry eyes. “Could be bigger, but there’s still plenty of meat there to hug my dick. And that face… god, I can’t wait to cum on that face of yours, you pretty little cunt.” Lira waited until he was just a couple steps away, practically drooling at the sight of her. Then she drove her fist into his stomach, and sent him flying a good ten feet before he crashed into a heap on the ground. All the men, and even the whore still being used at both ends, stared at her in wide eyed amazement.

The feeling that she’d first called her warmth had grown at a slow but steady pace over the last year. She still had no idea how she’d come by it. She’d never even heard of someone ever gaining a second power. She’d found that when she focused a lot of it in one place, her skin there would glow slightly. It didn’t look quite the same as her other power, the one that had labeled her as an Ant, but her only guess was that it was some kind of extension or mutation of it. Somehow she’d figured out how to use it to do more than just generate light.

Though she was curious to know the source of her power, she wasn’t particularly bothered by the idea that she might never understand it. Understanding the power didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was hers. “Well, come on,” Lira told the gawking men. “That’s one satisfied customer. Three more to go, right?”

Their faces darkened, and they pushed the girl away from them. The blonde whore scurried into a corner of the alley, watching from a near fetal position. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” said the man who’d been using her throat. “Some new superhero, Rainbow Cunt?” He crouched down, where his pants lay on the ground, and produced a pistol from them. “I don’t care if you’ve got the strength to lift a goddamn freight train. If you don’t want a bullet in your brain, you’re gonna strip, kneel, and start apologizing for hurting our friend.”

“I got a counter offer,” Lira said. “You take that gun and shove up it your ass, and I’ll let you waddle out of here like that.” His response to her taunt was to pull the trigger.

She hadn’t known what to call her new ability either. It had felt silly to keep referring to it as warmth. Eventually she’d decided that it didn’t really need a name. Coming up with stupid names for things was the sort of pointless thing that heroes did. All that mattered was that it was power, and it was hers, and it was amazingly versatile. When she filled her body with it, she wasn’t just stronger and tougher, she was faster too. Not enough to outrace a bullet or catch it, but enough to let her dart to the side and away before it reached her.

The man cursed and kept firing, but Lira easily dodged every shot, not even out of breath by the time his gun came up empty. “Cute,” she told him. “Wanna see mine?” She extended one arm, palm out, and focused some of her power into her hand like a ball, then imagined pushing it out and away. A narrow beam of light shot out from her palm, striking the man in the chest and pushing him violently back until he collided with the back alley wall and went down. She knew from experimentation that there was little to no heat to the light she produced, just pure kinetic force; judging from the dent in his chest that marked a few broken ribs, though, she had a feeling that didn’t much matter to him. “That’s two,” she announced. “Halfway there!”

That move, while flashy, was very draining, and she could already feel her reserves running low. She still had to spare some for the job. So when the other two men chose to run away instead of coming at her, she just stepped aside and let them pass. The two she’d hit were dazed but not knocked out, and they stumbled to their feet moments later to join them in flight. None of the men had bothered to retrieve their clothes, and all four were naked from the waist down as they fled out of sight.

Lira’s face was flushed, and she caught herself feeling a twinge of regret that they’d all opted to run instead of fight. Her power was a nameless tool, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t love using it, especially on fuckboys like them. Habit as much as anything else made her collect their abandoned wallets once they were gone. They’d had a few hundred bucks between the four of them, and she casually slipped the cash into her pocket before tossing the wallets back on the ground. Then she went back to the alleyway entrance and beckoned her crew to come over.

“The hell did you do to them?” Kell asked as they joined her. “They ran like Midnight himself was chasing at their heels.” He’d apparently enjoyed the spectacle, and wore a rare smile in place of his usual scowl.

Grace, on the other hand, looked nauseated. “Their… their ugly little things were just flapping in the breeze!” She shuddered theatrically. “Like long slimy worms. I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want one of those in them! Don’t you agree, Lira?”

The girl shrugged. “If anyone wanted their cocks, they wouldn’t be banging whores in dark alleys.” That reminded Lira that she hadn’t seen the woman leave. Sure enough, the blonde was cowering near the back of the alley, watching all of them fearfully.

“W-we weren’t supposed to let anyone see us in here!” Flint squeaked, looking around nervously. “What if she tells someone about us?”

Kell laughed. “You fucking coward. Now you’re scared of some whore? Hey, come on out,” he called to her. “Why don’t you give the scaredycat here a blowjob or something to calm his nerves?”

“I-I don’t…” Flint stammered.

Lira sighed. “Focus, morons. Nobody is getting their dicks sucked. We’ve got a job to do.” She pointed at the girl. “You, get lost.”

The whore nodded, rising unsteadily to her feet so she could start putting her clothes back on. “I, um, they were supposed to pay me,” she said timidly, casting glances at Lira without actually meeting her eyes.

She must have seen her going through the wallets. Lira pulled the wad of cash out of her pocket. “You think you deserve some of this?” she asked, showing it to the blonde. The woman reached for it, but at the last second the rainbow haired girl pulled her hand away. “See, here’s the thing: it used to be theirs, but then I took it, so now it’s mine. You want some of it for yourself, you’re gonna have to take it from me. That’s fair, right?” She held the cash out again. “Come on, give it a try. Let’s see what you can do.”

The girl hesitated, still frozen in the act of reaching for the money. She’d seen enough to know that she had no chance of getting even a single bill away from her. “Come on,” Lira repeatedly impatiently, shaking the money up and down in front of her. “You’re not even gonna try? No? Guess you don’t really want it then.” She stuffed the cash back into her own pocket. “So take a hike.”

“O-okay,” the whore said, looking like she was close to tears again. She let her hand drop. “I, I’m sorry…” She ducked her head and began hurrying out of the alley.

Lira rolled her eyes. Pathetic. The girl was just like she’d been a year ago, a weakling getting pushed around by everyone else. If she thought that was going to earn her any sympathy points, she was dead wrong. Not a single person had helped Lira when she was in that state, so Lira had zero obligation to help this girl now. “Stop,” she ordered, and the whore froze in midstep, shoulders hunched up like a frightened animal. When Lira took the cash back out and slapped it into her hand, she looked down at it in shock. “Don’t go thinking this is some gift,” the rainbow haired girl growled. “It’s payment for keeping your mouth shut. You’re not even going to think about telling anyone about seeing us here, got it?”

“Y-yes, of course!” the blonde said. “Not a word, I swear! Thank you!” A shy smile spread across her face.

“Don’t thank me,” Lira snapped with a grimace. “I told you, it’s not a gift, just a business arrangement, because you’re probably too stupid to keep quiet if there’s nothing in it for you. And if you betray me, I’ll do more than just take the money back. I’ll make you wish you’d been back here with forty guys instead of four, got it?”

Her smile unfazed, the girl nodded eagerly and left. “Finally,” Lira said once she was out of sight. “Now let’s get to it.”

“Real fucking great start,” Kell griped. “First the fatass jinxes us, now you’re just giving all our money away to random whores.”

Lira flipped him off. “It wasn’t our money, it was mine. And we’re all gonna take away enough from this haul to make that look like a handful of pennies. So shut up and climb on.” Kell scowled at her, but didn’t argue further as they got moving. Grace hugged her from behind, while the boys each took one of Lira’s hands. “Ready?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, started pushing her power upwards. Her feet rose off the ground.

Their strategy was simple. The windows, the doors, every available point of entry was certain to be wired with alarms. But not the wall. Nobody would expect someone to tunnel straight through the wall of a building hundreds of feet up in the air. And that was where Lira’s part of the plan came in.

She made it barely two feet up before she found herself lurching to the side, nearly swinging Kell into the wall. “Watch it!” he hissed at her.

“Watch yourself,” she shot back. “You think this is easy?” When she’d first discovered through experimentation that she could lift herself into the air by pushing her power, she’d imagined soaring through the skies like a bird. But she felt more like a drunk, one winged pigeon as she bobbed from side to side, slowly ascending in fits and starts, often falling a few feet before recovering. It wasn’t easy to move her power like this, and it just sort of pulled her body along with it. Kell and Flint both almost smacked against the wall several more times, and even Grace sounded miserable by the time they were hovering awkwardly at the same elevation as the penthouse.

“Hold still!” Kell said as he put a hand on the wall, making it start to melt away. “If you let me fall, I will haunt you so goddamn hard.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” said Lira, not in a great mood herself. Her power had done nothing at all to stop her stomach from rolling and churning all the way up, and the sight of melted goo oozing down the wall as Kell worked wasn’t helping.

It took ten minutes before Kell had created a large enough opening for all of them to go through, and Lira all but collapsed onto the floor as she made it in. Her reserves were nearly dry, her stomach was heaving, and she’d been worried she’d have to go all the way back down to recharge and throw up. But they were in.

The rest of them seemed equally exhausted, and it was a couple minutes before any of them spoke up. “Wow,” breathed Flint. “Are, are you guys seeing this?”

Lira had already known that Serafini’s penthouse took up the entirety of the two top floors, but she hadn't appreciated just what that meant until now. The place was massive. Most of it was a single large room whose ceiling was at least a good thirty feet up. Chairs and couches took up the floor space, all of them possessing that sort of not-quite-right look that meant they must be incredibly expensive. Most of them were drawn around various standing art sculptures, including several life sized female statues that were both extremely realistic and extremely naked, so much so that Flint's face grew red when he noticed them, prompting Grace to give him a disgusted look.

They'd entered at roughly the middle of the bottom floor. To either side of the hole they'd made, two curving staircases led to the upper level, which was more of a balcony or catwalk than anything else. Past the stairs were hallways on both levels that ran from one end of the building to the other. 

And the windows... when seen from below, they didn't look like much, and she'd been too focused on flying to think about them before, but now she had trouble taking her eyes off them. They were tall enough to cover both floors of the penthouse, and equally as wide. Lira, who had never flown in a plane or climbed any mountains or even been on the upper floor of a skyscraper, had never seen anything like the view the windows offered, all of Chicago stretching out for miles. She stared outside in wonder.

"Am I the only one who remembers the fucking plan?" Kell snapped. "Flint, stop fantasizing about sticking your tiny dick in a statue, and set your eye up. Grace, figure out where the fuck the loot is."

Flint flinched and quickly turned back towards the hole, holding out his hands. His eyes closed, and he began to mumble something under his breath. Meanwhile, Grace was tapping pieces of her bracelets. "I've got it," she declared. "There's a little bit of everything all around, but I feel a large concentration down that hall, on the right."

"Then let's go check it out," Lira said, still looking out the window. "You ready, Flint?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, already sounding a little nauseated. "Got one here, and by the elevator. If anyone shows up, I’ll see them.”

As the other three began hurrying in the direction Grace had indicated, Lira reluctantly tore her attention away from the view. After they'd cashed out, she was going to get herself a place with a view like that.

Grace turned her head to give the statues a final look before they disappeared from view. "Those were some truly stunning works," the redhead said. "Didn't you think so too, Lira?"

Lira shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I'm not really into art." For some reason, her answer seemed to disappoint the woman.

"This one?" Kell called out from up ahead, pointing at a door. When Grace nodded, he put his hand on the doorknob and rattled it. "Locked." A second later the melted doorknob hit the floor with a squelch. "Unlocked."

The room turned out to be a bedroom, probably the master bedroom judging from its size. The bed alone looked about as large as Lira's old apartment, and its silk sheets had probably cost more than a year's rent there had. Like the rest of the penthouse, everything was immaculate, not a speck of dust or clutter to be found. Several large tapestries adorned the walls, all of them featuring men with fancy clothes and gold crowns sitting on thrones. "So where is it?" Lira asked Grace.

The redhead was already concentrating, one hand clutching a bracelet. "Not in here," she said slowly. "Past here." She pointed at the back wall. "I think there's another room behind there."

"On it," Kell said, and began running his hands over the wall, slowly dissolving it. While he worked, Grace flopped onto the bed.

"Ohh, this is so nice!" she exclaimed, rolling from side to side a little. "Lira, come see how nice these sheets feel!"

Lira had nothing better to do, so she laid down next to the redhead. They were soft sheets, though she didn't have nearly the same reaction as Grace. They were just sheets, after all.

Grace rolled onto her side to face Lira, propping her head up with one arm. "I should get a bed just like this one," she said, smiling down at her. "Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

"I guess," the rainbow haired girl agreed. "Maybe I'll get one too." She snorted softly. "Though I have a hard time imagining an apartment big enough for two of these things."

"Well, we don't both have to get one," Grace said. "I'd be happy to share mine, if you like..."

That didn't make any sense to Lira. If she was sleeping in Grace's bed, where would Grace sleep? But before she could point that out to the woman, Kell spoke up. "Ho. Ly. Fucking. Shit! Check it out!" Lira rolled off the bed to take a look. Kell hadn't finished making an opening for them to walk through, but he'd opened up a fist sized hole that she could peer inside.

The hidden room looked nothing like the rest of the penthouse, and while it held a bed, it clearly hadn't been designed with sleep in mind. It was a small, dirty cot, and handcuffs dangled from each corner of it. It fit in with the rest of the room, where chains hung from ceilings and thick metal rings lined the floor and walls in regular intervals.

The rest of the wall space was occupied in two ways. First was the assortment of instruments hanging from hooks or sitting on metal shelves. Lira saw a whip, a set of pliers, several dildos of various sizes, and many many more things, most of which she didn't recognize and had no desire to learn about.

Second was the pictures.

A single glance was enough to know that these weren't actresses in staged photos. No one could fake that much pain and terror so convincingly. All of them were young and pretty and bleeding and crying. All of the pictures had been taken in this very room.

A host of bad memories rose up in Lira's mind, accompanied by a spike of nausea so strong and sudden that she finally lost control of her upset stomach, doubling over and throwing up.

"I told you guys," Flint said, pale faced and shaking. "I told you I had a bad feeling..."

Kell groaned. "You're all a bunch of pussies. Who cares what creepy fetish shit the bastard is into? Grace! Snap out of it and tell me exactly where the stuff is."

The redhead looked even more distraught than Flint, but she nodded. "I-it's in the b-back. The cabinet."

Lira wiped her mouth and tried not to look at the hole in the wall. She sat at the edge of the bed and Grace joined her, rubbing her back sympathetically. Everyone was silent as Kell resumed working, their earlier cheer gone.

That was why they all clearly heard the elevator door ding.

Lira bolted to her feet, gathering up her remaining power. She hadn’t recovered from the strain of flying yet, but she had more than enough to deal with the intruder. Though her heart was pounding in her ears and she thought she might be sick again, she felt oddly grateful. She couldn’t get rid of bad memories, but a person? That she could crush. “Who is it?” she whispered to Flint.

All eyes turned to the sandy haired boy, and he let out a frightened squeak. “We have to get out of here!,” he whispered back. “Right now!”

“Who is it, dipshit?” hissed Kell. Before Flint could answer, a wave of white swept across the floor, and Lira found her feet and everyone else’s frozen in ice from the ankles down.

“Hi kids,” Frost said cheerfully. “Are you lost?” Chicago’s most popular superhero looked older than Lira remembered from the posters, but everything else was the same. The same white costume with streaks of blue down the sides. While some supers tried to dress like swimsuit models, her outfit had always been designed for practicality and comfort, the result appealing without looking painted on. The same shock of white hair. After Lira met the woman years ago, she’d successfully begged her mom to buy her some hair dye so she could turn hers the same shade. It had lasted until her stepfather had entered the picture; he preferred blondes.

And that same smile. The same damn warm, confident smile that had mocked Lira for months until she’d torn all her posters down.

Lira didn’t even realize that she’d charged at the woman until a patch of ice twisted beneath her, sending her into a tumble. More ice started growing as soon as she came to a stop, trying to cover her, but she gathered enough strength to break free and scramble to her feet. The ice continued to try and crawl up her legs, and she quickly grabbed her power and pulled herself up into the air.

Frost quirked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t see many aberrants with levitation around. Some strength too, I’d wager. An interesting power set. Is the rainbow hair part of it too, or just a fashion choice?”

Lira narrowed her eyes, but before she could tell the woman to go fuck herself, Kell dashed towards the superhero. His feet were bare, and the ice melted beneath them with every step. Frost darted away and tried to send another wave to trip him up, but it dissolved before it reached him.

If his resistance to her usual tactics bothered the white haired woman, she gave no sign of it. “That one’s not bad either,” she commented. “Familiar too. You are the ones behind the recent string of jewelry store heists, aren’t you?”

Flint whimpered. Lira glanced in his direction, and confirmed that both he and Grace were trapped by the ice, which was already up to their waists and still rising slowly. It would be up to her and Kell to fight the super off, and he wasn’t having much luck. Even without the ice to trip him up, Frost had no trouble evading his clumsy attacks, smoothly dancing away each time like a matador toying with a bull.

Lira released her power, letting herself drop to the ground, and pushed it down to her feet instead. She couldn’t melt the ice like Kell did, but Frost couldn’t trap her like the others either. As long as she watched her step... this time she saw the wave coming and sprang over it. To her disgust, she saw the woman give her a small nod, as though impressed by her dodge. Lira leapt forward again, this time looking to punch her right in her smug face, and Frost deftly slipped to the side.

Even with two of them engaging her, the super still easily evaded their every attack. Lira remembered that was another property of her power: not only did the woman have no trouble with her footing on ice, she could glide across it as gracefully as an Olympic skater. Infuriatingly, Frost made no real attempts to strike them, apart from more occasional ice waves that Lira had to jump over. Lira knew the woman’s powers could be used more offensively. The fact that she wasn’t using them that way meant that she didn’t even judge either of them to be a threat.

The most annoying part was that if it wasn’t for the context of the situation, and the fact that her opponent was the smarmiest bitch in Chicago, the fight would have almost been, well… fun. Lira had gotten into a handful of physical scrapes in the last year, but just like the confrontation with Randall or the assholes down in the alley, they’d all been one sided exchanges where her power had easily dominated. This was the first time she’d ever really gotten to use it to its fullest, and it was like stretching muscles that had been silently aching all her life. As she bobbed and weaved, trying to find an opening in the superhero’s flawless defense, she fought down the growing sense of exhilaration. This wasn’t some friendly sparring match. This was Frost, fucking Frost, and the woman was still smiling at her, still mocking her just like always.

Her inner reserves were slowly but steadily dwindling, spent to keep smashing through the ice that never stopped grabbing at her feet, or burned to provide her with the stamina to keep moving. Kell didn’t have to worry about the ice, but he couldn’t keep going like she could either. Already he looked winded, and Lira could hear his breaths growing heavier. Soon he’d collapse and her power would run out, and it would be over. Lira gritted her teeth. If she kept trying to conserve her power, all she’d do was draw out her defeat. Instead, she let almost everything she had left fill her right hand, and then pushed it at Frost.

Brilliant white light burst forth from her palm in a focused ray. The ice all around caught and refracted the sight briefly, filling the entire room with an almost blinding radiance that made Kell and Frost both wince. For the first time, Lira had managed to catch the superhero genuinely caught unaware, and the white haired woman didn’t react fast enough to dodge. The beam hit her torso and blasted her straight through the bedroom wall and out into the hallway with a crash.

“Free the others,” Lira told Kell as the light faded from her hand and she slumped, panting heavily. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so little power left. Maybe not since she’d first gotten it. Her body felt heavy and weak, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet.

“Fuck that,” he said, and to her surprise he pulled a gun from his waistband. “I’m gonna finish her off before she recovers.”

“You have your gun?!” Lira asked, startled.

Kell glowered at her. “You think I couldn’t tell she was going easy on us? If she’d seen this before, she’d have smashed us both before I could do more than flip the safety. Had to wait for an opportunity.”

“That’s not what I meant! I told you to stop carrying that stupid thing!”

It had happened during their third robbery, four months ago. Like all the other times, they’d gone at the middle of the night, when the place would be empty, but that time they’d been unlucky and there’d still been an employee inside cleaning up. Kell had started waving that gun around, saying that the guy had seen their faces and needed to die. Lira had almost come to blows stopping him. She was certain that the only reason he’d backed down and let them just tie the employee up was that he knew she’d crush him in a fight, gun or no. After that night, she’d made it clear he wasn’t to bring the gun with him again, ever.

But judging from the sneer on his face now, she guessed he’d just gotten better at concealing it. “Of course I brought the fucking gun,” he said, his tone dripping with contempt. “Because this isn’t a goddamn kid’s game.” He strode out into the hallway, and Lira forced her body to move and follow him.

Frost was sitting up, her back against the wall. The white haired super was clearly injured, her normally pristine suit streaked with red. She was conscious, but made no attempt to rise when she saw Kell approach. “I’d... appreciate if you... didn’t use that,” she said. The woman was breathing hard, and Lira could hear the pain in her voice. “So far all you... you’ve done is some burglary and... a little breaking and entering. Nothing that can’t be... made up for. Murder is a... a big step up. I don’t think you’ll... like the result.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Kell growled, and leveled the gun at her.

“Don’t!” Lira yelled. She’d barely regained any power since blasting Frost, but she immediately burned it all to tackle the boy from the side. She wasn’t fast enough, though, and he got off three shots before she made contact.

The two of them slammed into the ground, Kell struggling to twist out of her grip. “What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bitch?!” he snarled. “I thought you hated the ice cunt!”

“Doesn’t mean I wanted to kill her, you psycho!” Lira had fantasized about a fight with Frost countless times over the last year. She’d imagined grinding the woman’s face into the dirt, forcing her to admit she was just another worthless celebrity doing cheap stunts to make herself look good. She’d wanted to make her pay for the cruel lie she represented, that there were heroes out there helping everyone in trouble. But the fights in her head had never ended like this.

“Too fucking bad,” Kell said, driving an elbow into her face. Without power to absorb any of the impact, it made her head rock back, and her hold on him loosened enough for him to escape. He scrambled away from her and rose to his feet, picking the gun up from where it had skidded away. “Bitch should’ve minded her own business.”

“That would make my life considerably easier,” Frost agreed from behind them. Lira twisted around to look at the woman as she struggled to stand up. Somehow the super was unhurt, or at least no worse off than before. “But much less interesting, don’t you think?”

Behind Lira, the gun barked twice more. The girl flinched, expecting to see bullet holes and blood, but there were two small thumps as both bullets fell harmlessly to the floor before they reached Frost. Each one was encased in a lump of ice, just like the other three next to them.

Frost actually winked at her when she saw Lira’s stunned expression. “I like to keep that little trick of mine out of the papers,” she said. “Stopping bullets is a much more useful power when people don’t know you can do it.” Another white wave rolled out from her, running along the floor and walls, and this time Lira didn’t have the strength to dodge or break it. It swept up her body, trapping everything but her head in a thick layer of ice.

“Then I’ll just bash your fucking head in,” she heard Kell say. She couldn’t even turn to look at him, but she saw the boy go by, charging at the helpless woman.

Only Frost was far from helpless. A thin pillar of ice burst out of the ground at an angle, catching Kell right in the stomach and halting his advance. Another came out of the wall, smashing into his hand and knocking the gun away. A third struck him in the face, and he collapsed into a boneless heap. All three strikes had occurred in the span of about two seconds.

“I did warn him,” Frost said dryly as she stood up. She looked tired, and was favoring one leg, but she still wore that smile. “I’d heard about him from the man I interviewed, but I was hoping the threats of violence had just been male bluster. Shame.” She turned to face Lira. “I do appreciate the attempt to help though.”

Lira pushed against her bonds, but she was completely immobilized. With enough power she might be able to break free, but that was going to take a while. “Interviewed?” she asked, hoping to stall for time.

“The jewelry store employee whose life you spared. He had some very unkind things to say about that one, but he also told me what you did for him. Between that and what I heard about your powers, I’d been hoping to run into you sooner rather than later. Today was just my lucky day.”

“So what, you were tracking us? That’s how you knew we were up here?”

Frost shook her head. “Oh no, dear. You don’t think you’re the first Aberrants to try breaking into places with their powers, do you? Animite detectors are still fairly rare, but a rich place like this is sure to have one. The hotel staff sent an alert to the police, and once they noticed your little hole in the side of the building, they recognized the MO and contacted me.” She put a hand on Lira’s frozen shoulder. “So what’s your name, child?”

“The hell do you care?” the girl grumbled. “And I’m not a child! I’m twenty years old!”

Frost’s smile widened. “Hello, The Hell Do You Care. My name is Fela, but you can call me Frost if you prefer. Mind if we talk for a minute? You don’t look like you’re in any hurry to leave.”

Her easy grin made Lira’s teeth clench. And how stupid was it that supers still went around making up names for themselves? The tradition had started as a way to conceal their identities, but governments had begun registering all powers powers decades ago, before most supers active today had even been born. Five seconds at a computer could tell anyone what Frost’s real name was. “Is this the part where you tell me how I can still make something of myself? Straighten up, fly right, become a productive member of society?”

The super chuckled. “Am I that obvious?”

Lira spat in the woman’s face, and was pleased to see that all her powers did nothing to stop the spittle from striking her cheek. “Spare me the sanctimonious bullshit. You already won.”

“Not everything is about winning,” Frost said, unperturbed by Lira’s response. “You shouldn’t be wasting your potential on garbage like this, knocking off jewelry stores and breaking into people’s homes. You could do a lot of good out there, maybe even be a super yourself.”

Lira laughed in the woman’s face. “You want me to be a superhero? Find another sucker, bitch. I learned a long time ago that there’s exactly one thing that matters in this world. One. You know what it is?”

“No, but I’m eager to find out.”

“Strength. Who has it, who doesn’t. All you people with shiny abilities, you get to run around calling yourselves heroes and villains, playing your little games. And you know why you get to do that? Because you have power, and power gets to set the rules.” Lira grit her teeth. “Me, I had no power at all before I gained this ability. I was nothing and nobody, and I had to do what everyone else wanted, no matter how painful or disgusting.”

“I’m sorry you-” Frost began, but Lira cut her off. It wasn’t about stalling her anymore, it was about showing this smiling, fake bitch that Lira knew the game too.

“Not one of you,” she spat, “not a single goddamn one of you, cared about what I was going through. And then I became one of you, one of the strong, and look! Suddenly you’re pretending you give a shit about me. Well you can give it a rest. I’m not an idiot. I already know none of you costumed freaks are heroes, and I don’t have to play along anymore like everyone else does.”

“Well,” Frost said slowly, “you’re right about one thing, and wrong about another. I’m not talking to you because of your ability. Don’t get me wrong, it’s rather incredible. Strength, levitation, energy blasts... the last Aberrant I saw who could do all that was Baldur, rest his soul. But the power doesn’t matter as much as the person using it. You’re quick on your feet, you don’t give up easily, and when you thought I was in danger, you tried to help even though I was your opponent. That, more than any fancy aberration, is why I think you’d make a good super. You were right though: none of us are really heroes. God knows I’m not. I’m just a person trying to do her best.”

The way Frost admitted her failing so easily made Lira’s blood boil. “Then why the fuck do you think I’d be dumb enough to want to be like you?”

To her surprise, Frost appeared to genuinely consider the question, tapping her chin as she thought it over. Then her eyes lit up. “Have you ever heard of the starfish parable?” She regarded Lira’s blank expression. “Alright. So a man goes for a walk on the beach one day. It’s right after high tide, and all across the beach, as far as the eye can see in either direction, are all these starfish are stranded on the ground. Thousands and thousands of the poor things, all helpless and dying. It’s sad, but…” Frost shrugged theatrically. “There’s nothing he could do to save them all, so he just keeps on walking.

“And then he sees a boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean, plop. The child is so little, he can’t even pick up more than one at a time, but he keeps doing it, running down the beach to toss one into the water, and then back up to grab another off the sand. Plop, plop, plop. The boy’s all out of breath, his face is red, but he keeps on running back and forth, plop plop plop.

“So the man says to the boy ‘Slow down! You’re going to hurt yourself like that, and for what? Look around: it doesn’t matter how many of them you toss in; you could keep doing it all day long, and it wouldn’t make a dent!’

“And the boy doesn’t answer at first. He just picks up another, runs down to the water, and tosses it in. Only then does he look up at the man. He points in the direction of the starfish he just threw, and says proudly ‘It mattered to that one!’”

Lira waited to see if there was more to the story, but Frost seemed to be finished. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she declared. “That’s your pitch for why I should be like you? So I can kill myself fighting for a hopeless cause?”

“No, you see, that’s what I’m trying to explain, “Frost said. “That there’s no such thing as a hopeless cause or meaningless action.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the rainbow haired girl interjected, sick of the woman’s fake friendliness. “And you know, that dumb story of yours agrees with me anyway. All the weak people can’t do anything but lie there in the sand waiting to die, hoping someone with the power to help them takes pity on them. Maybe they’re one of the lucky few to get noticed, but chances are they’re just one of the other thousands. And maybe after the next high tide, the kid is bored of saving starfish, and decides it’s more fun to jump on them and hear the crunch.”

Frost sighed. “Alright, alright, I’ll admit metaphors aren’t my strong suit. Let’s see, how else can I explain what being a super is like?” The elevator door dinged, and the woman swore softly. “I thought we’d have a little more time before the police checked in on us. Now look, just don’t give them any trouble, and I’ll meet you at the station, okay? I imagine you four have no one else who can pay your bail.” She glanced at Kell, still unconscious on the ground. “You three,” she amended. “People who try to kill me can go take care of themselves.”

Lira checked her power. Not nearly enough to break free, not if she wanted enough left to actually get away after. She’d run out of time. In a few seconds the cops would put an animite collar on her, and it wouldn’t matter anymore.

But the men who stepped out of the elevator weren’t police officers. There were five of them, and though they were all dressed in expensive looking suits, they looked like men more comfortable in dark alleys and shady bars than a ritzy hotel penthouse. For the first time, Frost’s smile vanished, replaced by a look of cold hatred. “Cyrus,” she said, giving the word the same intonation as “maggot’. I thought the judge gave you at least nine or ten consecutive life sentences.”

“Fela!” boomed the man in front. His tone was warm, but his eyes sparkled with malice. He had the frame of a professional bodybuilder, and his bald head was lined with old scars. “Never thought I’d be blessed to see our very own Miss Frost in person again! Don’t you worry, I served my time and was released back into society as a fully rehabilitated man. Mr Serafini values people with potential, you see, and had a little negotiation with the state about reducing my sentence.” He spread his arms and smiled widely. “And now I’m his chief of security, which means you and me are on the same side! Imagine that!”

Lira’s face had gone pale, and it wasn’t just the ice freezing her in place. Cyrus Paules was one of the most recognizable people in Chicago, but that wasn’t the name people knew him by. “I knew Serafini was a rat bastard,” Frost said, “but I didn’t realize he was enough of one to want to work with a murdering, raping wretch like you.”

“Former murdering, raping wretch,” said the man who had once called himself Backdraft, one of the most vicious and sadistic supervillains in the world before his defeat and arrest a decade ago. He held up one hand. “Scout’s honor. You can leave anytime you like, by the way. We already informed the police that this was a false alarm. Just one of our security team forgetting the rules and practicing his powers inside the premises.”

“Do you seriously expect me to just leave these children with you, then? You were never a smart man, Cyrus, but I hadn’t pegged you for an idiot.”

“Mr Serafini just wants the opportunity to talk with his guests,” Backdraft said. “They went to such efforts to get in here, it would be a shame not to show them some hospitality.” He grinned, his gaze shifting to Lira. The weight of his eyes made her skin crawl. “Especially when they’re so pretty.”

“Not going to happen,” Frost said firmly. “I wouldn’t trust a dead dog with you, let alone these four. Even the one taking a nap deserves better than that.”

“Aww, don’t be like that, Fela,” Backdraft said, his tone mock wounded. “I’m a changed man, honest. And now that your services are no longer required, you are trespassing on private property. I’m authorized to use any means of force necessary to deal with intruders, you know.”

The temperature in the hallway abruptly dropped several degrees. “I don’t respond well to threats,” Frost told him.

“This is the opposite of a threat,” insisted Backdraft, still smirking. “I’m trying to help avoid a conflict. I’d hate to see that beautiful face of yours marred by burn scars, after all. So just forget about the street rats and call it a day. Oh, and don’t think Mr Serafini isn’t grateful for your assistance.” He pulled a bank card out of his pocket and offered it to her. “Fifty grand, for your cooperation with us.”

Frost hesitated, but Lira already knew what her decision would be. Sure enough, the white haired woman took the proffered card. “Don’t think this means I owe you anything,” she warned, “because it doesn’t.”

“You fucking cunt!” Lira snarled. Knowing that the betrayal was coming didn’t make it hurt any less. “I knew you were just another fucking hypocrite!”

“Of course not,” Backdraft said smoothly, ignoring Lira’s outburst. “We have nothing but gratitude for your discretion. And Mr Serafini is a very generous man. I’m sure there are many ways you could assist his efforts in the city, and you would be well rewarded for all of them.”

“Don’t make me sick,” Frost snapped, but there was no conviction behind her words. “I’m not going to be like one of his dirty cops. This is a one time deal.”

“Certainly. But if you ever change you mind, you know where to find us. Now, were these the only two?”

“No, I’ve got two more iced in the bedroom,” Frost said. “Follow me.” She put a hand on Lira’s ice block. “Might as well bring this one along too.” She pushed, and Lira’s block slid weightlessly across the ground.

Flint and Grace were as trapped as she was, and both looked about ready to faint. “I’m sorry,” Flint squeaked as soon as he saw them. “I’m sorry! I know what we did was wrong! We’ll never do it again, promise!” Grace didn’t speak, but her wide eyes were full of terror.

Everyone was standing between Lira and the others now, their back to her. She might not find a better chance to escape. She flexed her muscles, testing the strength of the ice, and found to her astonishment that it felt thin and fragile. Closer inspection showed that while the ice block looked as thick as ever, the inside had been hollowed out, its sides as thin as paper. As though sensing her discovery, Frost glanced back at her and winked.

Lira felt ashamed at the sudden surge of relief in her heart. So what if the woman hadn’t really betrayed her? She wasn’t doing it out of charity. Frost just knew that a former supervillain like Backdraft couldn’t be trusted, and wanted Lira’s help fighting him. There was nothing but self-preservation behind her decision.

“What the hell is that?” Frost blurted out suddenly, sounding genuinely shocked. She must have noticed the hole in the wall. Lira had a feeling that things were going to come to blows as soon as the super realized exactly what she was looking at. It was now or never.

Lira called up her power, and smashed through what was left of the ice, charging through the surprised security team. Before any of the men could react, she shoved her hands into Flint and Grace’s blocks. Theirs were now as thin as hers had been, and she easily grabbed their hands and hauled them out, physically dragging them as she backpedaled out of the room.

Some part of her screamed that she had to turn around and go help Frost. The woman had been relying on her. She knew she couldn’t take all of them on. But Lira shoved that voice away. She had to look out for herself, and she wasn’t going to risk her life fighting a super like Backdraft and his men, all of whom would be armed, if not powerful Aberrants in their own right. Let Frost see what it was like to beg for help and be ignored.

“Kell!” Grace shouted, scrambling to her feet so she could run instead of being dragged. “He’s still back there!”

“We don’t have time!” Lira shouted back. He was still out cold, and she didn’t have the energy to carry him. Kell would know better than any of them that it would be foolish for everyone to get captured trying to save one of them.

They reached the main room, and Lira made a beeline straight for the hole they’d come through. She could hear feet pounding behind her, though she had no clue if it was Frost or someone else. She didn’t have enough power left to fly, and carefully scaling the wall was out of the question. That only left one possibility.

Grace and Flint both screamed as Lira jumped into the open air. The ground came up to meet them sickeningly fast. She’d have to time this just right...

She pushed her power up at the last possible moment, and felt herself halt in midair, all her motion arrested. A quarter second later her power ran out and they resumed falling. But she’d done it right: they were less than ten feet up, and while the impact sent sharp pain shooting up Lira’s legs, they didn’t feel broken.

The three of them staggered to the car, relieved to find it still there. It took Flint’s shaking fingers four tries to get the key into the ignition, but finally the car roared to life and they sped away, desperate to get as far from the hotel as they could. Lira resisted the urge to look behind her as they went, and tried to tamp down the guilt in her heart. She’d just done what she had to.

Besides, she’d already told Frost that she was no hero.


	10. Arc 2 - Fallen Star - Issue #9 - Sudden Departure

When Lira first awoke to her true power, she’d imagined going off to live in some fancy high rise apartment somewhere. Or a big mansion with a huge lawn. Or a place right next to the beach. Somewhere like Serafini’s penthouse, if she’d known that places like that even existed back then. The progression had seemed simple: power leads to money leads to luxury.

She had never imagined living in an abandoned basement apartment in South Chicago.

It was part of an old boardinghouse that had been condemned due to fire damage long ago. There were signs all over it announcing plans to tear the place down, but they must have fallen through, because a decade after being condemned, the building still stood and the signs were gathering dust. Lira and her crew weren’t the first squatters to call it home, but they were the only ones at the present: the rainbow haired girl didn’t like neighbors, and there were some things that a bit of power could accomplish easily.

“Grab your stuff,” Lira ordered the others. “We’re not staying.” Flint and Grace nodded and started gathering their things. Serafini’s men were probably already interrogating Kell about their whereabouts, and loyalty had never been his strong suit. Serafini had more than enough influence to have eyes on a place like this 24/7, so they’d never be able to risk coming back. This was the last time it would be safe to be here, in the few minutes before Kell ran his mouth.

It wasn’t a large apartment by anyone’s standards, and four people had made for a very cramped living situation. There was the main room, where Flint and Kell slept on couches. The sole bedroom, which Grace had insisted on claiming for herself, saying that she refused to sleep without a locked door between her and Kell (Lira couldn’t blame her for that). The one bathroom. And the sub-basement where Lira slept. It was accessible by a trapdoor set in the floor of the main room, and it was strictly off limits to anyone but her. It was almost as small as the bathroom and reeked of mold, but it was hers.

She went down there to collect her things while Grace and Flint were busy. There wasn’t much to collect: some clothes, the cash savings she'd hidden behind a loose brick, her hair dyes. She’d brought a duffel bag with her, and she put the cash in first, then covered it up with everything else. She trusted the other two more than anyone else in the world, but that only meant she trusted them slightly farther than she could throw them instead of slightly less.. There was no such thing as honor among thieves.

She heard the apartment door open upstairs. That would be Flint, leaving to bring the car around. They’d parked several blocks away just in case they were being followed. Lira wasn’t going to take any chances. Serafini was just another rich piece of shit, but she’d heard of Backdraft. Everyone had. He’d made a name for himself as a serial rapist. He wasn’t like the kind of supervillain they showed on TV who’d crow about world domination or go around robbing banks. He just took what he wanted, whenever he wanted. Like Lira, he understood how the world really worked.

Years ago, he’d appeared on the scene after a speeding ticket of all things. He’d liked the look of the cop who ticketed him, so he’d turned her car to scrap and taken her home. There had been a manhunt for her, but she wasn’t found until a month later, when she literally crawled into her old police precinct naked, burnt, and wearing a dog collar. The cops had tried to hush up the details, but pictures had been leaked and everything about her condition became common knowledge, including the fact that she’d shown up with her police baton wedged in her ass.

That was his sort of MO. He liked kidnapping and breaking women. A random passerby on the street that caught his eye, a celebrity in town for a film shoot, the daughter of the city councilman who’d held a press conference about hunting him down. He didn’t stalk around or make plans. He’d just find them, take them, and kill whoever got in his way. There’d been a video taken by a random bystander that had made the rounds for a while, where Backdraft had done exactly that, right on a crowded street. He’d punched the victim in the face, burned her clothes off along with half of her hair, and physically dragged her away by one leg. A couple good Samaritans had tried to stop him, and were reduced to ashes for their efforts. The video ended with the gathered crowd parting for him, letting him just walk away with the screaming, sobbing woman in tow.

The women always came back, eventually, mostly. Like his first victim, they were forever changed by the experience. The random passerby had been escorted back to her house weeks later so that she could suck and fuck him in front of her husband and children. He’d made the man help him double team his wife, and then forced the two of them to whore her out on the streets. For a week, Backdraft had lived in their house, using their children as hostages, while the wife and husband played the role of prostitute and pimp, bringing back random strangers to fuck her on their marriage bed for pennies.

The actress had been the most high profile kidnapping. He’d made her film all sorts of hardcore porn while she was with him: bestiality, scat, knife play, and worse. She’d turned up in Millennium Park one day, bound to one of the Crown Fountain towers, with a URL tattooed on her forehead and as many flash drives as he’d been able to stuff up her pussy and asshole. The website had eventually been taken down, and the police tried to confiscate all the flash drives, but every one of her videos could still be found at a hundred different porn sites these days.

The city councilman had received daily updates on the rape of his daughter from Backdraft. Every day there would be a new letter in the mail, with photos and recordings of what he’d just done with her. Frequently there would be a quiz embedded in one of the recordings or hidden in a photo, with questions like “How many times did I cum in your daughter’s ass over the last week?” or “Which have I fed your daughter more often: dog piss or dog cum?” The councilman had to go on television and answer the questions correctly as part of a public statement, or else the next letter in the mail would contain a piece of his daughter. She’d been missing three fingers and six toes by the time a garbageman found her half dead in a dumpster one morning.

There were others, many others over the years. When Frost finally managed to find and capture him, it had been in the newspapers for weeks. Lira had still been blind back then, and as dazzled by the woman as everyone else. She knew better now, but still, as she made a final sweep of her room and zipped up her duffel bag, she kept remembering that she’d abandoned Frost to that man. What would he do to her…? Lira shook her head. No, that wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t her problem. Frost only had herself to blame for going around pretending to be a hero. She deserved what she got, even if… she deserved what she got.

The door to the sub-basement opened above her, and someone began to climb down. “Hey!” Lira shouted angrily, happy to have a distraction. “Get the fuck out of here! Just because we’re about to bail doesn’t mean you… can…”

“Doesn’t mean I can what?” Backdraft asked as he let go of the ladder and dropped the rest of the way. The bald man turned and faced her, a sick grin on his face. “Sorry, street rat, am I violating your privacy? Penetrating your inner sanctum?” His grin grew. “What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

Panic rose up in Lira’s throat, but she fought it down as she called upon her power, letting it fill her entire body. This wasn’t the penthouse, where she’d been running on empty. Enough time had passed for her to recover, and right now she’d never felt stronger. She swung a fist at the man’s head, looking to wipe that smirk off his face.

He was quicker than he looked though, and she struck only air as he slipped to the side. “A real feisty one, yeah?” he said, amused. “Good, I love them feisty.” He stretched a hand towards her, but not for a punch. A line of pure fire shot out of his palm. Lira raised an arm to block, and the flame wrapped itself around her limb like a whip. Even with her power protecting her, the lash was burning hot to her skin, and Lira cried out as he swept his hand to the side, tugging her off her feet and slamming her into the wall. He swept his hand the other way to bash her against the opposite wall next, but she pushed against the movement with her power and managed to keep her feet. She brought her free hand down on the taut fire whip between them, snapping the lash in two. The severed end around her arm faded away like smoke.

This was Backdraft’s power, what had let him run rampant in Chicago for so long. Not only could he generate fire that he himself was immune to, he could mold and manipulate it like a physical object, letting him perform amazing feats of strength that defied physics. He favored whips, but he’d been known to make weapons like swords and sledgehammers too, or even wrap himself in his own flames as armor. He’d killed Justiciar that way, the last major superhero to try and bring him down before Frost. Justiciar had been a rising star with a reputation for being undefeated, until Backdraft gave him a bear hug that transformed the man into a charred corpse. 

His flame’s only weakness was that it had to remain in contact with his own body. Sever the connection and it would die. That was how Frost had defeated him years ago, summoning blades and spikes of ice to foil his every attack. Lira didn’t have anything like that, but she had enough raw strength to break his flames with her bare hands, and while touching them would hurt like hell, her power could prevent them from actually burning her. That would have to be enough.

Backdraft’s flame hadn’t just caused her physical pain, it had also made her heart race and her stomach queasy. The difference between his power and her stepfather’s was a mountain and an anthill, but they were similar enough to awaken old memories. Just being in close proximity to the man was emotionally excruciating, and knowing that given the chance he would treat her just like Randall had, only worse, didn’t help. She did her best to channel her fear into action, but she was all too capable of being motivated and terrified at the same time.

If Lira’s resistance to his fire bothered the man, he didn’t show it. If anything, he looked more pleased than ever. He extended his arm at her again, and this time she didn’t try to block the lash. She ducked beneath it instead and closed the distance between them with a couple quick steps, aiming her second punch at his solar plexus. She had to stay up close, where her superior strength and speed would give her an edge.

Backdraft brought his hand up, and a great wall of fire larger and wider than he was sprang up to block her attack. Punching the wall felt like sticking her fist into a pot of boiling water. Lira gritted her teeth and swung again, her second blow shattering the flame barrier. As the broken wall faded away, she realized too late that she’d walked right into his trap.

The bald man’s other hand, hidden by the wall, was already sweeping towards her, another lash of fire emerging from it. Lira couldn’t halt her momentum in time to avoid it, and it wrapped around her neck, burning and choking her at the same time. She screamed at the sudden and intense pain, and instinctively brought both of her hands up to claw it away, but he’d anticipated that. He extended his other arm, the one that had been generating the barrier a moment ago, and a second flame whip wound around both her wrists to pin them together. He hauled with both arms, and slammed her into the wall again.

“That’s the problem with street rats,” he observed as he smashed her into the opposite wall. Lira tried to bring her bound hands up to her neck to to break the whip, but he tugged them away, and the lack of oxygen made her too weak to beat him in a test of strength. She poured more energy into her limbs, but she was quickly running through her reserve just trying to keep the man from burning her alive. “You give them a little smidgen of power, and they start getting all the wrong ideas.” Two more whips shot from his hands, one wrapping around her knees and the other around her upper arms and chest. He swung her back and forth repeatedly, bouncing her off the walls of her room like a pinball. “Start thinking they’re people.”

After a minute of torture and suffocation, Lira hung limply in her bonds, all of her strength gone and her vision growing dark. Her remaining power was holding back the flames, but nothing more, and her body was growing more bruised and bloody with every hard impact. Just before she lost consciousness completely, the flame whips vanished and she fell to the floor with a bone jarring thud. She gasped for breath and tried to rise, but her limbs wouldn't obey her.

“Boy told me about your little ability,” said Backdraft, looming over her. “Sounded perfect. Usually I have to go easy on you whores, not start burning you until you’re too worn out to be worth fucking, but you?” He snapped his arm down, and a lash of fire struck her left ass cheek, producing a choked cry of pain. “You get to enjoy the full package.” He whipped her ass a second time. “On the bed, street rat. Let’s find out if that pussy is any good.”

“Fuck you,” Lira spat, and cried out as he whipped her again.

“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “But take your time, whore. This part’s my favorite.” His fire was a cudgel this time as it slammed into her back, making her limbs give out and sending her sprawling. “The time when you realize everyone’s been lying to you your whole life. Making you think you’re special and important, that what’s going on inside your head could ever matter to anyone.” The cudgel struck her left hand, and she screamed as two of her fingers broke with a sickening crunch. “But this is all you are and all you’ll ever be. You’re nothing but tits and holes, street rat, and I’m gonna keep going until you accept that.”

Lira wept hot tears of frustration as he continued torturing her with his flames. She was supposed to be past this! People weren’t supposed to ever be able to step on her like this again! She poured everything she had into her power, yelling at herself to get up and keep fighting, and then howled as what felt like a hot poker jabbed into her ass cheek, twisting and digging. :”Tits and holes,” Backdraft reminded her, and she squealed as a second poker jabbed her other cheek. He dragged both solid flames across her skin, spreading the hot agony. “Admit that’s all you are, and I’ll let you take a break for some hard fucking.”

Her power… couldn’t save her here. Lira felt something die inside of her with that realization. The ability that she’d been so proud of didn’t mean anything against someone with true strength like Backdraft. It was just a gimmick in the end, little better than her ability to glow. She’d been wrong: she was still one of the weak, helpless people, and always would be. She was still just that pathetic girl squashed beneath her stepfather as he grunted and pumped, and she’d been an idiot for ever thinking she could be anything more. “Tits and holes!” she yelled. “I’m, I’m just tits and holes!”

The pokers vanished. “Good timing, whore,” Backdraft said. “I just finished your new artwork. That skin of yours is tough, but everything burns if you’re patient enough.” Lira remained face down on the ground, making no attempt to rise or resist, as the bald man took out his phone and snapped some pictures. When he was done, he crouched and showed her the screen. Her entire ass was a patchwork of welts from the whip by now, but there were lines and swirls of dark burn scars on both cheeks, forming crude letters between them: WORTHLESS. “There you go,” he said cheerfully. “You ever start getting ideas above your station…” He slapped her ass with his bare hand, and the impact on her burnt and torn flesh made her cry out in pain. “You just remember what I wrote here.”

He stood back up and nudged her roughly with a boot. “Right then, ready for some pussy pounding, or should I write more love letters on you?”

Lira forced herself up onto her feet, feeling very small and alone as he pushed her towards her bed. He had her stand by the foot of it and bend over, her face pressed into the sheets as his unseen hands began to grope her. “Not a virgin, I see,” he observed, tugging at her labia to inspect her pussy. There was something intensely dehumanizing about the casual way he ran his hands over her. She was worth even less in his eyes than she’d been in Randall’s: no one particularly special or noteworthy, just another new toy to play with. “Shame, nothing quite like your first. But I’ll see if I can be as memorable, yeah?” She heard him removing his pants, and then something hot and hard poked her slit, making her flinch. “Welcome me in, whore,” he demanded. When she didn’t immediately move, he slapped her ass again. “Well? You still need some attitude adjustment then?”

“I-I don’t know what you want!” Lira protested, hating the terrified whine in her voice. Randall had never wanted her to be an active participant when she was with him. He’d just wanted a living blow-up doll, a girl that remained quiet and still and glowing while he masturbated himself with her insides.

Backdraft seemed to understand, because he just chuckled, his anger dissipating. “Then I bet I’m gonna have to teach you all sorts of things, street rat. Lesson number one: my hands have better things to do than touch your dirty, slutty cunt lips. Reach your hands back and spread yourself open for me.” Lira’s cheeks brightened with shame, but she obeyed, finding her labia and pulling them apart. The bald man wasted no time pushing himself into the opening she was offering, and the rainbow haired girl gasped as his prick sank into her. She’d had nobody in there since Randall a year ago, and Backdraft was longer and thicker than her stepfather had been. She was bone dry, but that seemed to be no deterrent to him.

“Nice and warm, nice and tight,” he said once he was completely inside her. “Good. There’s nothing more useless than a girl without a decent fuckhole between her legs.. Now rock your hips. Slide this hungry cunt of yours back and forth on my cock.”

Lira tried to do what he wanted, but it was an unfamiliar motion, and she was still exhausted and sore. After a couple minutes of her clumsy efforts, Backdraft sighed. “Looks like you need a bit more motivation.” And then she screamed as he stabbed her with a sword of fire.

At least, that’s what it felt like, at first. The pain was so deep and fierce that she was certain she’d been literally impaled on his flame. It was only after a few seconds, and enough agonized howling to make her hoarse, that she realized the truth. “Normally the finger alone does the trick,” Backdraft said, twisting the middle finger he’d rammed up her virgin asshole. “But you seem to be an especially stupid whore, so I thought I’d go the extra mile.” It wasn’t his finger that hurt, though it was far from comfortable. It was the column of fire emerging from his fingertip, filling her bowels like molten lava. “I don’t like lazy whores and I don’t like stupid whores, street rat,” he said loudly over her continued screams. “You’re going to have to shape up quick if you want to see tomorrow.”

Lira frantically rocked her hips, putting everything she had into fucking herself on his hard cock. It wasn’t just the horrible agony motivating her. Backdraft didn’t seem to realize that her resistance to his flames wasn’t a passive ability but something that required active effort. She didn’t want to tell him that she was even weaker than he thought, but if her power ran out while his flame was still inside her… she shuddered and fucked him even harder.

“That’s it, street rat,” Backdraft encouraged, sounding amused. “Be a good hole for my cock.”

Lira panted as she worked, perspiration dripping down her face. The fire inside her was heating up her entire body , and the sheets beneath her were already damp with sweat. Her arms ached from the uncomfortable position they were in, but she instinctively knew that trying to remove them would invite more pain, so she kept her hands firmly in place on her cheeks. Backdraft had stopped even twisting his finger once she’d begun moving the way he liked, and the knowledge that he was just standing still while she worked herself to the bone to make him cum made her feel dirty and disgusting. Like she really was exactly what he thought, nothing but a set of tits and holes built to please his cock. Was he even wrong?

“Almost there, whore,” the bald man said, his voice slightly strained. “Now I want to hear how much you love me.”

“I-I love you?” Lira ventured, the words too ridiculous to say with any kind of sincerity. She gasped in pain as the fire in her ass became noticeably hotter. Her power was only barely holding it back now, and it would be gone in seconds.

“Say it like you mean it!” he ordered, furious. “Make me believe that you love me more than anyone in the entire world, whore! Show me that you’re a groveling, whimpering little bitch who can’t live without my cock!”

“I love you!” Lira wailed as she felt her insides starting to cook. “I-I love you so much! And your cock! Oh God, I love you and your cock so much!” She continued screaming declarations of love as his dick began to pulse and swell. He was close, but his fire was still inside her, and the pain in her asshole was diminishing, not because the flame was growing smaller or cooler, but because her nerve endings were being burned away. “I’m yours!” she screamed, desperate to make him finish faster. “I’m your tits and holes! I’m, I’m, I’m your street rat whore!”

Just as she was convinced that it was too late, that she was going to burn alive in her own room with his cock buried in her, he began to unload in her pussy, spraying his hot cum all over her walls, and he withdrew his finger from her asshole, letting the flame dissipate. The rainbow haired girl laid there numbly, more tired than she’d ever been and completely drained of power, as the last few drops of his semen spurted in her.

“Not half bad, whore,” Backdraft said as he pulled out of her. “You might just make a halfway decent fucktoy after all. Now get down here and suck my cock.”

Lira slid limply to the floor, still acutely aware of his jizz inside her, warm and slimy. She itched to go scrub herself clean, but she knew there was no chance of that happening. Instead she rose to her knees and found herself eye level with his soft cock. Even like this it was disturbingly large, and sticky with his cum. It was one of the most disgusting things she’d ever seen, but she opened her mouth and took him in without complaint. He tasted worse than he looked. This was just the way things were meant to be, she told herself, as her tongue began to lap the cum off of him. He was strong, and she was weak. There was no point in feeling sorry for herself.

As she slurped on his filthy prick, she felt the pain in her bowels gradually sharpen. It made her squirm uncomfortably, but it also brought a deep sense of relief: the internal damage hadn’t been too great for her power to heal. It was actually beginning to recede, the nerve endings restored, when she felt Backdraft’s dick began to grow harder and thicker in her mouth. Backdraft pulled out of her and slapped his wet cock against her cheek. “That’s enough of that for now then,” he said. “Just a little taste, whore. You can enjoy the full thing later.”

The bedsprings creaked as he sat down on her bed. “Up on my lap. Let’s find out if your ass is as good as it looks.” A bolt of terror ran through Lira, and a whimper escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her asshole was healing, but it was still completely raw inside, most of the freshly healed nerve endings exposed. If he shoved that thing inside of her now…”please,” she whispered, her voice tiny and weak. “I, I’ll suck your cock as much you want, honest! And I’ll fuck my, my cunt on your cock just the way you like it. So please, please not my ass…”

He chuckled. “So do you still have a virgin hole on you, yeah?” She nodded. “Then I’ll make you a deal, street rat.” He leaned in a little, his voice growing a bit softer. “I can break all your fingers, smash your teeth in, burn those fat tits of yours until they melt, rip off your clit, and then give what’s left of you a good, hard buttfucking… or you can climb onto my lap and do it yourself, like you were fucking told. What’s it gonna be?”

Lira looked into his eyes, and saw only malice and lust looking back at her. She shivered, suddenly certain that he meant what he said. She meant absolutely nothing to him besides what pleasure he could wring out of her body, and he'd mutilate her without hesitation if it would get him what he wanted. As far as he was concerned, she was utterly expendable. Wordlessly she joined him on the bed, sitting in his lap with her back to him. She could feel his cock beneath her as a painfully hard lump against her butt. His hands slid over her breasts, palming them with casual possessiveness. They belonged to him now. “Put it in yourself, whore,” he told her. “It’s been a busy day, and I’d just like to relax and play with your tits while my new fucktoy rapes her own virgin butt.”

Lira shook with fear as she lifted her hips and took hold of his prick with one hand, guiding it to her anal ring. It felt far, far too thick to ever fit as she sat down on it. His cockhead flattened against her opening, and she spread her ass cheeks with her other hand, trying to open the way forward. Backdraft’s thumbs were lightly flicking her nipples when she winced, the head of his too thick cock finally wedged inside her. He felt like a baseball stuffed into a garden hose, and she made a soft sound of pain. Every instinct in her body told her to move away from the source of agony, but she had to close her eyes and press against it instead, using gravity to assist her. Progress was torturously slow as she shifted her hips this way and that, battling her own asshole for every millimeter of progress. All the while, the bald man groped and pinched and squeezed her tits, seemingly fascinated by the soft flesh.

It felt like hours passed before her hips made contact with his legs, and his fat prick was fully seated inside her. She could feel every vein and hair on the filthy thing, and every little twitch felt like someone trying to rip her in two. Her entire rectum burned from the way his head had scraped the raw flesh on its way in, and the heat of her battered walls nearly rivaled the literal flame that had been inside her a short time ago. Lira knew that she had to lift herself up now, but she couldn’t work up the will to do it. Now that the entire thing was buried inside her, the only thing worse than leaving it in was having to get it all back out.

“Credit where credit’s due, street rat,” Backdraft told her. “These aren’t the first virgin guts my cock has explored, but the way they hug my shaft is as warm a welcome as I’ve ever received. But…” she went rigid as he coated his hands with fire and resumed groping her, “it’s going to feel even better and more welcoming when it’s massaging my prick. Get moving.”

His scorching hot fingers dug brutally into her flesh while his equally blazing palms made her nipples sizzle. Lira screamed and squirmed, trying to escape his grip, but that only made him tighten his grasp and burn her more severely. For several seconds she just howled helplessly, his laughter reminding her that all of her pain was helping make him feel good. There was only one way to make the torture stop, and the rainbow haired girl took it, forcing her body to rise back up. It was a million times harder than putting it in had been; gravity was now working against her, and her abraded flesh was swelling up, shrinking the already tight anal passage. But she didn’t have a choice. Lira cried out freely, tears running down her face, as she dragged herself off of his cock, the process as agonizingly slow as it had been the other way.

When only the head remained inside her, Backdraft told her to stop. “Time to go back down, whore.” Lira was openly sobbing by now, and inside her head she cursed and screamed. It wasn’t Backdraft she was angry at, though. She was pathetic! Thinking she could be anything more than a sniveling weakling! This was what she deserved for forgetting her place! Thoughts like those rampaged through her mind, and in that moment the bald man’s treatment of her seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She was just worthless trash, after all. If someone like him, someone who was allowed to be a real person, could find a way to get some use out of her, she should be thanking him for it. ‘Just tits and holes’? He was being generous with her.

Lowering herself onto his cock the second time hurt worse than the first. So did lifting herself back up. And the third was worse than the second, and the fourth was worse than the third… each time she forced the fat ugly thing into or out of her, she injured her rectum further for the next time. But Backdraft kept her going, cruelly pushing her ever onward with his flames. Just as her asshole hurt more and more as time went on, his treatment became worse and worse, her hands hotter and more aggressive. Eventually he got sick of only torturing her tits and began using one hand to play with her cunt too, caressing her tattered insides with fire and making her howl for mercy. “I love you!” she pleaded, half mad and desperate to making him finish. “Your street rat loves you! Her asshole loves you! All of her tits and holes love you! She loves being buttfucked!”

When he pressed a searingly hot thumb against her clitoris, the agony was so intense that she lost control of her bladder, spraying urine all over her bedsheets. Backdraft roared with laughter at the sight. “You little anal slut! It feels so good that you’re pissing yourself?!”

“Yes!” she agreed, her own words making her feel like rancid garbage. “Yes! This street rat whore is an anal slut! She, she needs your cum in her shithole!” The way his cock pulsed told her that her words were having an effect, and she threw herself into them, abandoning her dignity for the sake of survival. “I’m just a worthless whore! A worthless whore who can’t live without your cock! Can’t live without your hot cum! Please let me taste it! Let me feel it spurting in the tight virgin guts you love so much! Oh God! Oh God! I love you!”

It was all too much. Too much pain, too much humiliation. It was swallowing her whole. Lira could feel herself fading, becoming the empty doll she’d been for Randall. Just property to be used. She welcomed the return, eager to forget everything that had happened over the last year and find comfort in oblivion. She’d made the mistake of thinking she could be a person, of allowing herself hope that she could find happiness. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. She would seal herself away where nothing could hurt her.

Lira left.

The bald man groaned as his twitching cock erupted with cum. The salty juice soaked into the bleeding rectum of the girl in his lap, and she shrieked at the new pain. He stopped torturing her tits and cunt, but the rainbow haired girl continued breathlessly degrading herself and declaring her love for him while his cock softened. It was what he would want. “Thank you! Thank you! I love your cum so much! It feels so wonderful in my ass! Your whore doesn’t deserve such a reward!”

“You pitiful street rat,” said Backdraft. “You know, the boy said you’d give us trouble. Claimed you were tough as nails. What a fucking joke! I haven’t even finished checking out all your holes yet, and you’re already a broken, weeping bitch. I’ve never seen anyone so weak. So perfectly suited to be a fucktoy.”

“Yes sir,” she agreed. She knew he was right. “I’m just a fucktoy.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said mockingly. “You’re not just a fucktoy.” More hot liquid gushed into her stinging bowels “You make a good toilet too.”

“Thank you sir,” the rainbow haired girl said as he pissed in her guts. She meant it. “Thank you for letting me be your toilet.”

A few minutes later, the girl knelt in front of him, carefully cleaning his cock with her tongue. As ordered, her hands were behind her, cupping her gaping asshole to keep his fluids inside of her. She tasted her own shit and blood on him along with his piss and cum, but she didn’t even think about complaining. She belonged to him now, and if he wanted to use her mouth to wash his filthy dick, who was she to argue? “Balls too,” he said. You got some of your piss on them.” She obediently lowered her head so she could lick the sweat and urine off of his balls. Once they were slick and shiny with her spit, she returned her attention to his dick.

When she had cleaned every last trace of anal sex off of him, she continued sucking. After a minute, he began to stiffen again in her mouth. A tiny, quickly dwindling part of her viewed his revival with dread, knowing it meant she was about to be raped again, but most of her was indifferent, if not grateful: he wanted to use her again. Even someone as pathetic as her could find a place in the world as a fucktoy and toilet.

“One last hole to try, rainbow slut,” Backdraft told her. “Get that cock down your throat.”

It hurt to do what he’d asked, but that didn’t matter. He still tasted disgusting even after being cleaned, but that didn’t matter. She felt humiliated swallowing a cock that was still warm from her ass, but that didn’t matter. She forced her head down deeper, dismissing everything that didn’t matter as useless noise.

Once half of his cock was inside her, the rainbow haired girl couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t matter. Her sore throat didn’t matter. Her tears didn’t matter. Her gagging didn’t matter. She forced her head down deeper.

He was all the way in. Her tongue on the base of his shaft. Her nose in his pubic hair. His cockhead deep in her esophagus. Her lungs screaming for relief. She pulled back, letting it all come out slowly. Feeling his head travel back up her esophagus, his shaft slide across her tongue and lips. More pain, more disgust, more humiliation, all discarded. His head cradled in her mouth, her seared chest heaving as her lungs drew in air.

She slammed her head back down, producing a wet gurgle. All the way back to the base. Soreness, gagging, tears, suffocation. She drew back. Again. Again. Again.

The rainbow haired girl threw up. It didn’t matter.

Again. Again. Again. Spit and precum bubbling out her lips, snot and tears covering her face. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. The taste of her vomit on his shaft. The pulsing of his head in her throat. His coarse pubes against her nose and lips. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Gagging, choking, hurting, sobbing, but never stopping. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Muffled words of love, of degradation, of despair and submission. All unintelligible, but the words themselves mattered as little as everything else. Again. Again. Again. Again.

His head swelled, fat and painful inside her, and sperm shot down the rainbow haired girl’s throat. She continued mindlessly fucking her throat on him as he spurted, and when his stream slowed a trickle, she sucked the last drops from the tip. Her tongue cleaned the vomit off of him, then moved on to where it had spilled onto the bed. She licked the filthy sheets, tasting sweat and urine now too. Relief. Disgust. Humiliation. All ignored.

“Won’t be needing these anytime soon,” Backdraft commented, tossing her clothes out of the duffel bag while she continued cleaning the bed of everything they’d left behind. “Don’t mind keeping this though.” Her life savings went into his back pocket. “Ah, here’s the thing.” He pulled a brightly colored sock out of her bag and tossed it at her. “Here, to keep all that piss and cum in you so you’ll still be nice and juicy next go-round.” The sock was scratchy against her flesh as she crammed it into her bowels, and the thought of having his urine and semen in her was vile, but the rainbow haired girl gave no reaction.

He could have just ordered her to climb up the ladder, but he wanted to drag her instead. Bound in ropes of fire, she was hauled up into the main room of the apartment. Through the open door to the bedroom, the rainbow haired girl saw Grace on the bed, sandwiched between two men, four others standing nearby and smoking while they waited their turn. She observed the red haired girl’s plight with clinical detachment, ignoring any emotions triggered by the sight of her closest friend in the world being raped.

Her wrists were together and bound to the headboard. Her legs were apart and bound to the bed posts. All four limbs were bloody from struggling, but she was still twisting them, uselessly expending energy and hurting herself further. The man beneath her was using her ass and squeezing her tits. More blood ran out her anus as he furiously pounded her, and her nipples were red and sore from the attention they’d been receiving. The man above her was using her cunt and kissing her. Her insides were already full of cum, and drops of it spurted around his cock with every thrust while he attacked her mouth with his tongue, violating her oral cavity every bit as aggressively as her cunt. Her sheets and legs were coated with more sperm, some of it already drying; it had to be at least the tenth time she’d been raped. Grace was crying.

Flint was dead.

His burnt body was on the floor next to the exit. Most of him was blackened beyond recognition, but there was enough of his face left for the rainbow haired girl to identify the expression of terror he’d worn when he died. He was one of the only people who’d ever been kind to her. He’d trusted her. If she was capable of feeling emotion, she would have felt back breaking despair and grief at how she’d failed him.

“You want to try the ginger bitch, sir?” asked one of the smokers. “She’s a bit sloppy by now, but they’re still good holes, and we left her mouth alone in case you wanted a go at it.”

“Nah, this whore already drained my balls good,” said Backdraft, slinging the rainbow haired girl over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. “And I need to save some up for Fela. Didn’t get to fuck the ice cunt more than once before we left, after all. Cleanup crew will be here in a few hours, so you stay here and keep enjoying yourselves until they show up. If that street rat is still alive when you’re done with her, send her to the boss. Mr Serafini likes red heads.”

“Yes, sir.”

The bald man patted the sock stuffed in the girl’s ass. “Tell him I took the rainbow slut as my commission. If he needs me, I’ll be home playing with my new toys.” If she’d possessed any will or emotions, she would have screamed and begged the men to have mercy and kill her as he carried her out of the apartment. But luckily, there was no one left in her head to care.


	11. Arc 2 - Fallen Star - Issue #10 - Frosty

If the rainbow haired girl still had emotions, she would have been miserable after two grueling weeks of captivity. She would have hated her owner with a passion for the way he abused her, would have been deeply ashamed at her own weakness in being unable to stand up to him, and would have longed for death as the only possible escape from the endless nightmare she was trapped in.

But she didn't. She was just an empty doll.

The doll ran her tongue over Backdraft's shaft, tasting a mix of bodily fluids that would have nauseated any real person. She licked carefully and thoroughly, just the way her owner wanted. If he wanted something, she did it. There was no need for thought or emotion to get in the way. She would have chewed her own fingers off with the same lack of hesitation if that was what her owner wanted.

Beside her, Frost sucked on Backdraft's balls. Her owner enjoyed having the two of them serve him at the same time. Frost was still a real person, but by now she obeyed most commands as readily as the rainbow haired doll. After a few minutes the two women kissed, tongues caressing each other to share the foul tastes in their mouths. As their owner wanted, it was a wet and sloppy kiss, and drool ran down both their chins by the time their lips parted. Then the rainbow haired doll began sucking his balls while Frost tended to his shaft. It wasn’t the first time they'd switched roles like that since kneeling in front of their owner this morning, nor the fifth.

The doll’s new home was an abandoned car factory in an industrial sector. All around them were huge, rusted machines blanketed in dust, whose function she neither knew nor cared about. The only natural light came from dusty, half broken windows high up on the walls. When her owner wasn’t using her, she slept inside a padlocked locker in what had once been the manager’s office. Sometimes Backdraft threatened to let her starve to death in it when he got bored of her, but the threat was meaningless. If he wanted her to starve to death, he had only to ask.

"Alright, enough of that, whores," Backdraft said amiably. He was sitting in a metal chair, his legs spread to enjoy their attention. "Who wants their guts filled this time?"

"Please fuck my ass, sir " the doll begged. She didn't want him to. Nor did she want him not to. She had no wants at all inside her empty head. But she knew the things that she was supposed to say. "Your street rat whore wants to taste your jizz with her asshole. Please help this needy anal slut."

Frost grimaced. "Hasn't the child been through enough? Just let her go already, Cyrus. You only have the one prick, and it seems happy enough when you stick it in me." The white haired woman was still wearing her superhero uniform, mostly. The chest piece had been ripped to expose her tits, the crotch was missing, and what was left was so filthy after two weeks of sexual slavery that the fabric could hardly be seen through the grime.

"But how can I abandon the poor thing," Backdraft asked with a grin, "when she wants my cock so badly? Bend over, rainbow slut.”

“Yes, sir,” said the doll meekly. She stood up, spread her legs, then kept them straight and bent her upper body until her palms hit the ground. She turned her head to look back at him, the way he liked, and wriggled her ass, the way he liked. “Please come fuck this whore’s shithole.” When she felt her owner behind her, she ground her ass against his crotch, taking his cock inside her. The rainbow haired doll pushed herself back and forth along his entire length, feeling her guts squeeze and suck on him. Someone else would have been disgusted by the way her body’s attempt to resist his invasion was just giving him a tighter and more satisfying hole to fuck. She knew it was only fitting that everything she did served him. Someone else would have begged him to let her go slow, because she’d barely slept in the last two weeks and hadn’t been given anything more substantial to eat than semen. She knew that it was his decision how much she slept and how much she ate, not hers.

The brand stamped across her ass ached every time she made contact. The word WORTHLESS had faded only slightly over the last two weeks, and the skin there was still sore and itchy. Despite the pain, she fucked herself hard on him, striking with enough force to make her burned cheeks jiggle. Like always, he didn’t move a muscle himself; he didn’t have to. He had a pair of fucktoys to do all the work for him. The doll panted and sweat as she put her entire body into the effort. She would be a good fucktoy. It was all she had to offer.

“You do make a good point, Fela,” Backdraft said. “My cock is pretty well occupied right now. So why don’t you eat out my ass instead?”

Frost made a disgusted sound. “Fine. At least it will taste better than your dick.” The doll couldn’t see what she was doing, but she felt Backdraft shiver in pleasure, and knew that the superheroine’s tongue must have gone to work on him.

Between his two toys, it didn’t take long for their owner to fill the doll with sperm. She waited patiently on all fours until he withdrew, feeling no nausea at the sensation of his warm seed inside her. Once he was out, she promptly turned around to clean him up, the taste of him and her ass quite familiar by now. For all of Frost’s attitude, she remained behind him the entire time, and the doll could hear the wet sounds of her tongue continuing to slurp on his anus.

“Makeout time, whores,” he ordered, and they obediently ceased their tasks to kiss, trading the taste of his filthy cock for the taste of his filthy ass. Then the doll shuffled behind him to french kiss his wet butthole, while Frost continued the clean up job she’d started. They traded places several more times before their owner was satisfied with their performance.

“What do you think, street rat?” he asked. “Should I let you go?”

“You should whatever you want with me, sir,” she said sincerely. There was no other correct answer, but it seemed to amuse him.

“See what I mean, Fela?” he said. “She’s a worthless bitch, but at least she knows it. You could learn a thing or two from her.”

“You wish I was more meek and humble?” Fela asked dryly. “Sure. Take off this collar and I’ll give you some extra special TLC. I promise it will be an unforgettable experience.” She and the doll both wore animite collars to prevent escape attempts. The doll’s wasn’t necessary, but Backdraft had given her one anyway. She didn’t miss having her power; it had been useless.

“I’m sure it would, Fela,” said Backdraft, chuckling. “I’m sure it would.” He sat back down, and both toys went back to their default positions: the doll licking his shaft, Frost licking his balls.

“You know,” he mused after a few minutes, “maybe you’re not wrong. As fun as it is watching you two sluts lez out with each other, it is a little hectic having two fucktoys to manage. Maybe you and I, we can work something out, yeah? Let the rainbow slut go.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Frost said quickly, and with none of her previous attitude. “Anything.”

“Is that so?” he said with a smile. “Is that so… here’s what I want, Fela: I want Frost to die. And no, I don’t mean you, Fela. You’re going to be my cum dump for a long, long time. It’s Frost we’re going to kill.”

Frost made no response, other than licking his balls some more. Backdraft seemed a little dissatisfied at her lack of reaction.

“We’re going to make a movie together,” he continued. “A movie that shows people who Frost really is: not some big, fancy superhero, but just another squirmy little bitch. Sound good?”

“And you’ll let the girl go?” Frost pressed, still licking.

“Yeah, why not? You sluts get boring after you break.” He kicked the rainbow haired doll in the side, and she winced, but kept tonguing his shaft. “See?”

The doll didn’t understand. She didn’t need to understand, only obey… but she didn’t understand. She continued kneeling, silently worshiping Backdraft’s cock as he went over what he wanted Frost to do. The head of his prick thumped eagerly against the roof of her mouth as he explained his intentions to Frost. The superheroine didn’t hide her disgust, but she agreed to everything, even when he brought the tattoo machine out and told her what he was going to write on her, and she held still for him while he permanently defaced her body. If she’d been real, the doll would have felt confusion at the white haired woman’s decision. Who would go so far for a worthless cum receptacle like her?

By the time he’d finished explaining everything, and set a video camera up on the tripod, he’d already finished in the doll’s mouth twice, but seemed no less eager to continue. “I knew you’d have a livestream page,” he said, chuckling as he sat and used the computer connected to the camera. “Vain cunt. Give me the username and password… there! All set. You ready, rainbow slut?”

“Yes sir,” the doll agreed, and began bouncing in his lap, fucking him with her cunt. It hurt terribly - he'd burned her for fun there the day before, and it hadn't even begun to heal- but that didn't matter. What mattered was using her fucktoy pussy to stroke every inch of his fat, throbbing cock at just the pace he liked. There would be no reward or gratitude for her performance, only punishment if she was lacking in any way, or if he just felt like it. But that was all fine; fucktoys deserved whatever they got.

Her technique seemed to satisfy her owner for now, and he wrapped his arms around her as they and the camera all faced Frost. “This is going to be a live broadcast, Fela,” he told the woman, showing her the screen. “No takebacks, no second chances. You do this right, and you play your part, without hesitation, or I keep the street rat for another few months or so, until she’s so fucked out that I might as well be sticking it in a garbage bag. Understand?”

Frost nodded, looking sick to her stomach. She was sitting in a special chair he’d brought over that had cuffs attached to the bottom, and she had her legs together to hide the missing crotch part of her suit. He’d also given her a t-shirt to cover her front, though it was several sizes too small for her. The collar was still on, but she wore a second one over it to conceal it, a black leather dog collar that Backdraft sometimes liked to make the doll wear. “I’ll give you what you want, you perverted piece of shit.”

“Now that doesn’t sound like my new pet,” he chided. “Want to try that again?”

The white haired woman closed her eyes, and then gave him a smile that lit up her face. Something in the doll almost ached at that familiar expression. “I’m ready, master!” she said cheerfully.

“Good,” Backdraft said, “keep up that positive energy, slut. Three, two, one…” he tapped the keyboard.

“Hi everyone!” Frost said with the same tone and smile. “I know I’ve been a little busy the last couple weeks, so I’m here today to give you all an update! And I have some big news.” She held up a finger. “Number one! As of today, I am quitting the superhero business! Thank you for all of your support over the years, but pretending to be a boring, prudish, upstanding member of society was just too stressful. I need to be true to myself, which brings us to number two!” She held up a second finger. “I’m embarking on a brand new entertainment enterprise that will better showcase all of my most valuable assets.” Her smile widened. “So say goodbye to Frost, the boring superhero…”

She spread her left leg out to the side and bent her knee so that she could latch one of the chair’s cuffs around her ankle to hold it in place, her foot now suspended several inches above the ground. Then she did the same with her right leg, leaving her crotch wide open and making the butt plug she was sitting on plainly visible. “And hello to…” She gripped her t-shirt in both hands and ripped it in two, revealing the word FROSTY crudely tattooed across her tits. “Frosty the Snow Slut!”

Frost began to sing as she wiggled back and forth on the butt plug, gripping the edges of her chair so she could lift herself up and down on it in tiny motions as well.

“Frosty the Snow Slut  
Is a jolly happy cunt  
With a well stuffed butt and some juicy tits  
Her name tattooed on their front

Frosty the Snow Slut  
Makes your cocks grow fat and thick  
And you’ll be surprised when  
Before your eyes  
She is bouncing on your dick

There’s nothing she loves better  
Than getting fucked hard in the ass  
And if you chase your cum with piss  
She’ll be such a happy lass

Frosty the Snow Slut  
There is nothing she won’t do  
She’s a shameless bitch  
With an endless itch  
That her hubby never knew”

Frost began to bounce faster, fucking herself as hard as she could on the plug.

“Thumpety thump thump  
Thumpety thump thump  
Look at Frosty go  
Thumpety thump thump  
Thumpety thump thump  
I wish you were this dildo!”

She was panting hard by the time she stopped, but the grin never wavered. Even the doll wouldn’t have known it was fake if she’d seen this without context. “That’s right, everyone,” she said, “we're going to thoroughly explore the “ins and outs” of the new Frosty.” She winked. “Speaking of, it just doesn’t feel right to leave my cunt empty for so long.” The fingers of her left hand were already sliding into her. “Mmmm, much better. What could be nicer than tickling my wet pussy while I’ve got an ass full of thick cock? Mmm hmmmmm… now where was I…? Oh, right, the new Frosty.”

Her right hand gripped the back of the chair so she could slowly bounce herself on the butt plug some more. “The truth is, I am a dirty, needy, hungry slut. And the only thing I like better than getting fucked hard is getting to show it off to everyone. You don’t mind, do you? That my pussy is getting soaked at the thought of all of you watching me?” She purred. “I want to share myself with all of you. I want you to see me in all of my most intimate moments.” Her fingers began moving faster. “I wish I had you here. I wish it was possible to literally fuck each and every one of you, and be your personal superhero sex toy, living chained to your headboard or bound up and kneeling under your desk. But this is almost as good, isn’t it? Getting to watch me in ways only a lover could, seeing moments like these where your little snow slut frigs herself while she fucks her own ass. Before, the only one who got to see me like this was my husband.” Her lip curled in disgust at the word. “My wimpy, boring, tiny dicked husband who refused to let me express myself, who forced me to run off to somewhere far away where he can never find me. Bruno, if you’re watching this, you are not welcome here. This pussy doesn’t belong to you anymore. Everyone else, if you’re watching me right now, if you’re sharing this special moment with me, then as far as I’m concerned, we are lovers, and more intimate ones than he ever was. Frosty is your desperate slut just as much as anyone else’s, okay?”

Frost’s eyes closed, fingers moving even faster. “And your slut has a favor to ask. Can you cum for me? Can you stroke your cocks and rub your slits while you watch me like this? I want us to finish together. No, I need us to finish together. And then every spurt of semen, every gush of pussy juice, it’s like you’re making love to me.” She moaned. “That’s it, lover, use your hands to make love to me. I want those cocks thick and hard, those cunts hot and slick. I’m fucking… every… single… one of you right now. Whether you’re watching this now, or a month from now, or a hundred years, Frosty the Snow Slut is now your bitch, your slut, your white haired cum guzzling twat licking fuckdoll…”

She shuddered, and the rainbow doll would have sworn the orgasm was genuine if she hadn’t seen the woman practice it repeatedly. On her back,where the cameras couldn’t see, were the fiery whip marks from the many times Backdraft had found her rehearsal unconvincing. “Cum with me, lover! Now, now, please god do it now, cum with meeeeeeee…” Her body writhed as she let out a feigned sound of pure joy, and then she slumped back into the chair, panting.

After a moment, Frost sighed happily and wriggled in her seat. “Wasn’t that fun? I hope all of you watch this over and over, and cum with me every time.” She pulled her fingers out of herself and began licking them clean. “And this is only the first. I'm thinking of having more videos up soon, a lot more, and please, lover, please watch them. I can’t wait to make love to you again. If I’m a really good girl, then maybe, just maybe, you’ll only ever do this with me. Do whatever you want with your husbands and wives, but when you’re alone and your fingers start getting busy, if you always watch me, just me, make me the star of every masturbation fantasy, then mmmmmm…” Her fingers were back inside her. “If that doesn’t make me your little superhero slut, what does?” She waved at the camera with her free hand, then blew it a kiss. “See you soon…”

The moment Backdraft switched the camera off, Frost’s fake demeanor vanished. “There, I did what you wanted,” she said tersely. “Now let the girl go.”

“Aww, back to business so soon, Fela?” the bald man mocked. “But I like you so much better that way!” He hadn’t told the rainbow doll to stop fucking him with her cunt, so she continued softly humping him. 

“Yes, well, I’d like you better if you were six feet in the ground with your own cock stuffed down your throat, Cyrus,” Frost replied. “Life is a real disappointment sometimes. Let the girl go.”

Backdraft scratched his chin. "And if I don't,” he said slowly, savoring the words. “What are you going do about it, exactly?"

Frost glared at him. "You agreed to-grkk!" She clutched at the thin flame whip suddenly coiled around her throat, in the space between the collar and her chin.

"I think I know what you're going to do," Backdraft said, as though she hadn't spoken. "You're going to thank me for making you a pornstar, and then you're going to crawl over here all sexy like and fuck me with that tight, hardworking ass." Even as she was choked by the whip, Frost's expression made it clear how unlikely she thought that was going to be. Her reaction seemed to amuse the bald man. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Fela?" he taunted. "How easy it is to make you do whatever I want? Let me show you."

In one hand he held the whip, slowly strangling the white haired woman to death. The other hand stroked the doll's face as she worked to please him. "She's a pretty fucktoy, isn't she?" he remarked. "But pretty fucktoys are a dime a dozen." The rainbow doll stiffened as his index finger dug into her right cheek, causing searing pain as he swept the burning digit across her soft skin. Frost was squirming and trying frantically to speak now. "You should've thought about that before you decided to be a disobedient bitch," Backdraft said, ignoring her pleas as he moved to her left cheek. "But even I can be a kind owner, Fela. Now you'll never forget this lesson."

After the initial shock wore off,, the doll realized that he was writing on her again. If she’d been a person, the humiliation of it would have made her want to die. The brand on her ass could at least be covered with clothes if she ever had them again. This new one though, it would remain visible and prominent forever. Backdraft could keep his word and let her go today, and she’d still never be free of him, never be able to have anything approaching a normal life again. But that didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She was just a doll and things like that didn’t matter to dolls.

When her owner was done, he pointed at the black computer screen, letting the rainbow doll see his handiwork in her reflection. WH on one cheek, RE on the other, and her mouth in between. WHORE. He’d written WHORE across her face in big letters that no one could ever miss. "What do you think, street rat?" he asked. “Really captures your essence, don’t it?”

A small ember of soul inside her was screaming in rage and grief, but dolls didn't feel things like that. All that came out was "I love it. Thank you, sir." He must have liked the answer, because his cum began to paint the walls of her pussy.

Frost gasped for air as he finally released her throat from the whip. "You... you sick monster!" she spat.

Backdraft shook his head. "And to think, I always figured you were a smart one. Guess that was just good publicity, huh?" His finger jabbed into the doll's stomach next.

"Stop!" Frost pleaded, all of her fire immediately gone. "I, I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you want!" But their owner wasn't listening, and shortly after the doll had a new permanent label on her body: TRASH. Once he’d finished the last letter, he looked up and met Frost's eyes without saying anything. For a moment both of them silently stared at each other, and then the superheroine broke first, looking away. "Thank you for making me a pornstar," she whispered, head down.

"Now that doesn't sound much like that chipper girl from the video," Backdraft said. "Maybe another reminder would help improve your mood? I still have plenty of canvas to work with here."

The white haired woman looked up to meet his eyes again and forced a smile onto her face. "Thank you for making me a pornstar, master!"

"You're welcome, slut. Now get that ass over here."

She did, unlocking herself from the chair and crawling over. And the doll used her tongue to help get him hard again, and lapped at his swinging balls while Frost fucked him. "If it makes you feel better, Fela," he said as he enjoyed her ass, "I really was planning to let her go, but you were just so cute in that video, even better than I hoped. When it comes to being a horny bitch, you’re a natural. And if I let her go now, you’ll never make another one of those for me, will you? That would be a goddamned shame, it would. So I need my leverage to remain right where she is, tasting my sweaty nutsack and keeping you well behaved.”

"If you want... more videos..." Frost panted. She’d obeyed their owner’s commands with little hesitation for the last two weeks, but she was fucking him now with an enthusiasm the doll had never witnessed before. "I'll give them... if you let her go..."

"Yeah?" he asked, amused. His hands tugged and pinched at her nipples. "How many videos is your little fucktoy companion worth to you?"

"As many... as you want... I'll keep... making them as long... as you want... but only if you…let her go first…"

Backdraft laughed out loud. "So you really do want to be a pornstar, then? Do you think I'm as stupid as you are? The minute the street rat is out of sight, you'll change your tune. I know the only reason you haven’t already tried to slit your wrists or bite your own tongue off is that it would leave her alone with me."

"No... I promise... to make the videos… and follow your orders… and never try to kill myself… and my word... actually means something..." She yelped as he smacked her butt and left a burned handprint behind.

"Less talking, more fucking, Fela," Backdraft said, settling into his seat. "You try being a good fucktoy for a while, and I'll think about it."

“Yes, master,” she said, and obeyed.

**********

"Hello again, everyone, " Frost purred. "Did you miss me?"

One week had passed since the first video. In that time, when she wasn't busy being Backdraft's obedient cock sheathe, the superheroine had produced three more videos at his direction, all featuring her as the wanton and sex starved Frosty. Each video was more degrading than the last, and even the empty headed rainbow doll knew why: he wanted the woman to give up and admit that she wouldn't be able to keep doing these. To the man’s obvious delight, each video was also more popular than the last. Word of Frosty had spread quickly, and it seemed there were plenty of people that were perfectly willing to accept her outlandish claims of retiring to become an online exhibitionist.

She was still dressed in the defiled superhero costume, but she actually looked cleaner and healthier now than she had during the first two weeks. Backdraft wanted the public to go on believing that she was doing all of this consensually, and obvious signs of captivity would have made that difficult. Her treatment wasn’t actually any better; Backdraft just stuck to torturing her in places where the camera couldn’t see. The soles of her feet were a particular favorite of his. Frost wasn’t letting it show on her face, but having her weight on her tender, burned feet had to be agony.

Her cleanliness was thanks to the rainbow doll. Before each video, it was the doll’s job to wash the woman with her tongue. She’d scrape all the dried cum and blood off her body, suck their owner’s seed out of her holes, lap the tattered fabric of her costume until the dirt stains were gone. Backdraft made her do things like that more and more often with each passing day as he grew bored by her lack of reaction. The doll was still a fucktoy, and cum drooled out of all three of her holes, but she was equal parts toilet and washcloth now.

The doll had spent most of the videos pleasing their owner with her body, but this time he had a different use for her. She quietly crawled across the floor on her hands and knees instead, head down as she licked the dusty concrete, always making sure to stay well clear of the camera. The floor was stained with sweat and cum and other bodily fluids, and her job right now was to scour every inch of it while she watched the performance. Backdraft had promised that if she did a good job, he’d let her have a tin of wet dog food as a reward. Her filthy, dusty mouth watered at the idea of such a feast.

"Today I've asked my boyfriend for some extra help," Frost said. "He's a little shy, so he usually stays behind the camera, but this time he's gonna help me be the squirming fuck bunny that makes all of you squirt your loads. Isn't he the greatest?" She winked at her viewers. "But before that, I need to get myself in the right position for today's fun." She spread her legs and bent over, giving the camera a wide view of her ass. "This would be perfect," she declared as she shimmied her butt back and forth, "but I want to stay like this for a while, and my poor weak legs can't hold like this for very long. I need some assistance."

The white haired woman straightened up and walked over to a nearby worktable, running her hands lightly over it. It was covered in dust and old tools, though the steel vise bolted to the table’s center was markedly cleaner and more prominent than everything else. "Isn’t this a nice table? I love resting my tits on some nice thick wood." She giggled. "But you all know by now how much I tend to wriggle and bounce. I need a way to stay in place, and this… She bent down and kissed the vise. "This is just what I needed!"

Frost leaned over to let her breasts hang down between the two flat jaws of the vise, and began to tighten it using a crank on the side. "Mmm, you have no idea how good this feels," she said as the metal began compressing her tits from the front and back. "But it feels best when it's really, really tight." She continued tightening the vise, her breasts getting crushed harder with each turn of the crank.

When Frost couldn't tighten the vise any further, her breasts viciously sandwiched between the hard slabs, she looked over her shoulder. "Lover, could you help make sure it's really as tight as it can get?". Without showing his face to the camera, Backdraft reached out and wrenched the crank, drawing another half turn and making Frost squeal.

Her breasts were now being mercilessly flattened, and she couldn't keep the pain off of her face. "Hurts so nice," she managed. "My boyfriend is so good to his pet pain slut." Her hands reached out to spread her ass cheeks open. "And now we can start having fun!"

Backdraft swung the camera around to focus on her backside. "My boyfriend is going to help me warm up," Frost announced. "I want him to have a pair of nice, hot ass cheeks to enjoy as pillows while he explores my insides. Ready? Give it to me, lover!"

The leather strap Backdraft struck her with couldn't have hurt as much as the flame whips he loved, but it was still enough to make her jump. "See why I needed the vise?" she told the camera. "Keeps my plump butt right where it's supposed to be for its leather kisses. That was one. Give it to me again, lover!"

*SMACK*

"That was two. Give it to me again, lover!"

*SMACK*

"That was three. Give it to me again, lover!"

By the time the count reached twenty, her ass cheeks were bright red from top to bottom, and there were tears in her eyes. “P-perfect,” she choked out, fighting to maintain her cover. “Sorry, I just, I just want him so bad… please fuck me lover, please!”

Backdraft slapped her ass cheek with his stiff cock, and Frost was so sore down there that the light contact was enough to make her yelp. He rubbed his shaft on her for a minute, smearing precum across her red skin, and then slid his length up and down the valley between her cheeks. The white haired woman was still standing wide legged and spreading herself with her hands, presenting her cunt and asshole to the world. “Whichever hole you want,” she told him. “You’ve trained them both to please you so well.”

The superheroine let out a fake coo of delight when he rubbed his head against her slit, and pushed herself back on him to swallow him up. “That’s it, lover!” she told him. “Stuff Frosty’s twat with your hot meat and make her melt!” Unable to move much, she rocked back and forth on her feet, pumping him and in out of her in a slow rhythm. The slight tightening of her expression was the only sign she gave of how much it hurt her feet to move like that . “God, you feel so good!” she announced. “Your fat cock is such a tight, wonderful fit in your favorite slut’s pussy.”

After a minute, she stopped rocking and let him slide out of her. There was only a tiny note of hesitation in her voice as she spoke. “I don’t think my hole is as hot as you deserve, lover. Warm it up for me, pretty please?” Backdraft stepped back, showing the camera her gaping cunt, and then slapped it with the leather strap. Frost squealed loudly and looked like she was nearly about to break character, but she forced the smile back onto her face. “S-so good,” she hissed. “That was one. Give to me again, lover, beat that slutty cunt of mine! Teach it a lesson for always being so greedy and sucking all your sweet cum out of you!”

*SMACK*

“That was two. Give it to me again, lover! Get your slut’s fuckhole hot and ready for your cock!”

*SMACK*

“That was three. Give it to me again, lover! Get your slut’s fuckhole hot and ready for your cock!’

The bald man lashed her a total of ten times, all directly on her pussy and all counted off by Frost, and it was looking even more red and swollen than usual when he was done. The superheroine winced in pain when his head rubbed her slit like before, but she began rocking her feet again, swallowing him up and spitting him back out over and over. “Are you enjoying that toasty warm cunt, lover?” she asked. “The only thing that would warm it up more is your hot cum. But don’t rush! You just relax and enjoy me.”

After another few minutes, she pulled away from him again. “I think my ass is cooling down,” she said. “Another th-thirty strokes should get it back where it needs to be.” Her ass actually looked much worse than before when Backdraft stepped back, dark bruises already forming, but he didn’t hesitate to start using the strap on it.

*SMACK*

Frost’s mouth worked silently for a moment, unable to speak from the pain. “…th… That was one! Give it to me again, lover! Remind your pain slut why she loves you so much!”

*SMACK*

“Thuh, that was two! Give it to me again, lover! Remind your pain slut why she loves you so much!”

By thirty strokes, she was visibly shaking and looked absolutely exhausted. It was clear that just as she’d predicted, the only reason she wasn’t collapsed on the floor was the vise’s grip on her tits. According to the script the doll had watched Frost and Backdraft go over multiple times until the white haired woman had memorized it, they were nearly done: he was supposed to use her pussy a final time and finish inside her. But instead, she let out a sharp cry of surprise as Backdraft’s cock rubbed not against her cunt again, but against her puckered asshole. “That’s not what-!” she exclaimed, and then pressed her lips shut to stop herself. “I… I didn’t expect s-such a treat,” she said, recovering and pushing her ass onto him. “Your dick is s-so good in my guts!”

Backdraft made her fuck him like that for a long time. Three different times the doll saw Frost pull away in the hope that he would follow the cue and switch back to her pussy. The bald man ignored it every time, standing there patiently until she reluctantly swallowed him back up. The video had been going on for half an hour when he stroked her red slit with the strap. Frost shuddered, but gave him what he wanted. “Please… please warm my fuckhole back up, lover,” she said. “Make, um, make it glow before you feed it your cum!”

He didn’t bother pulling out of her ass, and Frost didn’t stop fucking him. She continued rocking back and forth as he brought the strap up in an underhand swing to slap sharply against her pussy lips, making her squirm in place so hard that the heavy worktable creaked and shifted a millimeter. “That… that… that was one…” she said, panting. “Give it to… give to me again, lover… get your slut’s fuckhole hot and ready for your cock!”

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

Backdraft didn’t stop at ten, or at twenty, or even at thirty. He kept hitting her again and again, all but daring her to break character and beg him to stop. But Frost didn’t. Her voice grew ragged from screaming, and tears dripped down her cheeks, but she never stopped playing her role even as he pushed her harder. “That was… was forty seven. Give it to, to, to me again, luh lover… get your slut’s fug- fuckhole hot and ready for your-” *SMACK* “That was fuh… forty ei-” *SMACK* “That-” *SMACK* “That was fuh… fifty… give it to me… again, lover… get your… your… your slut’s fuckhole hot and ready and… for your cock…” *SMACK*

He’d been at this for twenty minutes by the time Frost managed to get all the way to one hundred. The doll knew this had to be the end. She couldn’t imagine even a sadist like him going any farther than that, not with the woman’s slit already as red and raw as hamburger. He’d cause her permanent damage if he kept going, if he hadn’t alrea-

*SMACK*

Apparently the superheroine had counted on him being finished too, because when he beat her pussy for the one hundred and first time, she let out a choked and anguished sob. “Please…” she moaned. “Please… please…” The doll watched Backdraft smile with satisfaction at having finally pushed her past her limits. Frost’s voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper by now. “…please…………. give... give it to me… again……”

Backdraft’s smile was quickly replaced with an annoyed scowl, but he didn’t strike her. Frost sobbed again when his cock slid out of her asshole and poked her cunt, but it was a sound of unfeigned relief this time. “Thank you…” she whispered as she took him into herself. It had to be agony to her tenderized pussy, but she didn’t hesitate. “Thank you… I… I want my, my hole warm and w-welcoming for your seed.” Her voice gained strength as she fell back onto the memorized script. “Fill my fertile twat with your cum! Breed me, lover, breed me!”

There was more to the script, but Frost wasn’t the only one being pushed to her limits by the long video. Before she’d made it to ten pumps, Backdraft threw his head back and groaned in pleasure. He shot most of his load inside of her, but pulled out to spray the last of it on her swollen cheeks, the bruised flesh so sensitive that the superheroine twitched at every drop. He left his semen glistening on her skin as he moved to her front and presented himself to be cleaned.

The white haired woman forced a final tired smile onto her face. “Y-you made me cum so hard, lover… “ she croaked. “I lost… lost count of how many times… you’re so… so good to me…” Her lips parted and she got to work, her tongue gently cleaning every trace of her insides off of him. When she was done, she gave the head of it a long, sloppy kiss, and then licked her lips. “Please tell me… we can do this again… soon…and h-harder?”

She sagged when Backdraft turned off the camera, and the tears began to flow more steadily. The superheroine quickly reached for the vise crank to free herself, but Backdraft slapped her hand away. “What’s your hurry, slut?” he asked cheerfully. “You look so comfy like that.” Frost whimpered, but let her hands drop to her sides, swinging limply. Her feet twisted and turned in place, trying unsuccessfully to find a position where her own weight wouldn’t torture her.

Their owner left her there to go examine the floor. “Not bad,” he remarked as he inspected the spit shined surface. “Not great, but not bad. Do you think you deserve that dog food for all your hard work, street rat?”

The rainbow doll bowed her head. “No, sir,” she said. Empty dolls didn’t deserve anything, didn’t want anything, didn’t feel anything. They just were.

Backdraft grunted, sounding dissatisfied by her response. “Open!” he barked, and she immediately lifted her head and opened her mouth just in time to catch his piss stream. She gulped it down, trying her best not to spill any. A few drops of urine escaped her, but as soon as he was done she put her head back down and lapped them up. “Seeing as how I already spent my load on Frosty, and we agree you didn’t earn your dog food, looks like you’re going to bed tonight with nothing but a piss dinner, yeah?”

“Yes, sir.” Her stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. Dolls didn’t get hungry. “Thank you for the piss dinner, sir.”

“Fuck me, you’re worthless,” Backdraft said sourly. “Might as well be a blowup doll for all the fun you are.” He rolled her over onto her back with a foot, then stepped on her face. He didn’t put all his weight down, but there was enough to make her head pound as it was pinned between the floor and his foot. “I liked you much better that first time. All that fire inside, a feisty little bitch to tame… but this? You’re just pathetic now.” The doll gurgled involuntarily as he pressed down harder, but made no attempt to struggle free. “Just a filthy, broken fucktoy. I’d be doing the world a favor if I killed you right here.” The doll didn’t disagree.

The pressure on her face abruptly vanished. “But I’m not that nice,” the bald man told her, then he raised his voice. “Fela! That offer of yours still stands? You swear to keep being my actress if I let the street rat go?”

“Yes!” Frost said hoarsely. “Yes, I swear!”

“It’s going to make your life even harder from now on,” he taunted. “If you thought it was bad now, just imagine what it will be like without a fellow fucktoy to share your burden. Every time I want a tight hole around my cock, it’s going to be yours that have to wring out my cum. Every time I’m in the mood to hear some pretty screams, or my bladder gets full, or there’s something around that needs a good tongue washing, you’re the one I’m gonna go to. You really want to put yourself through all that for the sake of a two-bit thief who, correct me if I’m wrong, helped put you here in the first place by leaving you to die?”

“I swear,” the white haired woman said, without hesitation. “I’ll do whatever I have to if you let her go.”

Backdraft shrugged. “I still think you’re full of shit, but why not?” The doll held still as he walked away, not daring to leave the position he’d put her in. A minute later he came back holding a small key and knelt beside her. “I like this little hidey hole of mine, street rat,” he told her quietly, “and I’m in no hurry to move. So you’re not going to tell anyone about this place, or about me or Fela. Not your friends and family, if a pathetic bitch like you even has any, and sure as hell not the police. You understand?” She nodded, and then flinched as he rammed two red hot fingers into her pussy, and an equally hot thumb up her asshole. “Because if you do,” he hissed as her flesh sizzled, “I will find you, and I will make these last three weeks seem like a pleasant vacation. I don’t care how broken and meek and unresponsive you are, I’ll have you screaming and begging for death long before I’m done with you.”

There was a small click as he unlocked the animite collar around her neck, then he stood up and tossed it away. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked, and kicked her hard in the side. “Get lost, street rat!”

The rainbow doll shakily rose to her feet. She expected him to start laughing at any moment, tell her it was all just a joke and order her to put the collar back on, but he ignored her as she began staggering away. When she reached the exit, she looked behind her and saw he was already back with Frost, her mouth working to get him hard again. “You stay here much longer, I’m gonna start thinking you really are some kind of needy pain slut,” Backdraft remarked without glancing in her direction. “And shut the door on your way out.”

The doll didn’t understand. Him getting bored with her, that made sense. So did him deciding to throw her out. She was just worthless trash, after all. But why did Frost still want to help her? She certainly didn’t deserve it, and Backdraft was absolutely right: once she was gone, the woman would suffer even more. There was no reason to do it, especially not for an empty doll like her. Superheroes bragged about duty and self-sacrifice all the time, but it was always just fluff to make themselves look good. No one would ever know about Frost’s decision, let alone be impressed by it. It made no sense. She didn’t understand.

But she didn’t need to. She was just a doll, and all dolls had to do was obey. So she left. Left the abandoned factory that she’d been certain she would die in. Left the man who’d taught her what she was. And left Frost, the only hero in the world who might actually deserve the title, all alone with a monster. Again.


	12. Issue #11 - Thrown Away

Time passed.

The doll lived. Dying would have been easier. If it was possible, she would have simply not eaten, and let herself become just another lump of trash inside one of the dumpsters she sometimes slept in. No one would care either way. But every time she tried, something inside her would object. When she was too weak to silence it, that last remaining piece of her that still wanted to pretend she was human would emerge, and make her eat rotting garbage and drink out of puddles to survive.

It shouldn't have been enough to live on, but it was. That was her useless power's fault. She could feel it inside her, bolstering her health just enough to stop her from spiraling. The constant usage left only a bare trickle available to her, but that didn't matter; the doll had no desire to ever use it again. If she still had emotions, she would've longed to tear the power right out of her with her bare hands. All it had ever done was trick her into thinking she could ever be more than this.

Not all of her meals came from the trash. People would occasionally approach her on the street, wanting her to go somewhere with them. They'd take her to hotels, or their cars, or just a nearby alley, and she would perform the sorts of things that Backdraft had taught her. Sometimes they would pay her after. Sometimes they wouldn't. Even when they did, it wasn’t ever much more than spare change, only enough for a small meal or two. Enough to dull the constant hunger, but never to really erase it.

The WHORE brand on her face had faded a little over time, but it was still plainly visible and kept most people from trying to interact with her, and she hid from the police whenever they approached her location. She hadn’t forgotten Backdraft’s warning, or how powerful the man he worked for was. If the police picked her up off the street, her former owner might find out and come for her, and that little piece of her that still clung to life wanted nothing to do with him ever again.

She wasn't a rainbow doll anymore, just a broken one. Time and rainwater had transformed the colorful mohawk into a mop of drab blonde. The rest of her had become gaunt and sunken from lack of food and proper sleep. Her clothing was as tattered and worn out as the rest of her. She'd acquired them two months ago, shortly after Backdraft had thrown her away, in exchange for letting their former owner take her up the ass. The shirt was stained, ill fitting, and went down almost to her knees. Her jeans were little better, stiff with grime, held up by a dirty cord for a belt, and ripped in multiple places nearly to the point of obscenity. She wore no underwear, and her sneakers had already been falling apart when she'd found them in a trashcan. Every item smelled nearly as bad as she did.

She never wished for anything, but at night she often concluded that everything would be better if she just didn't wake up the next morning. There was nothing left of her but a dirty, pathetic sex toy, after all. Even the people who sought her out didn't hide their disdain for what she was. They would call her ugly and filthy and disgusting even as they shot their cum into her. But every day she woke up, and kept doing what she needed to survive, despite all reason.

It was only a matter of time, though. Her power grew weaker and weaker with each passing day. Someday soon it would give out and she'd end up in the trash like she belonged.

It would be better that way.

**********

"Hey, remember me?" called out the young man in the car. The broken doll didn't, but she nodded anyway, and he produced a wad of bills. "You wanna come have a good time? I'll make it worth your while if you make it worth mine." He was smiling, but there was a cold look in his eyes that she'd seen before in others. He recognized her for what she really was: an object, not a person. People like that were more likely to hurt her when she went with them, and less likely to pay her anything for it.

But even if she'd had an opinion about the smirking man, it was late, and she had no money, and she hadn't eaten in more than a day. So she nodded again, and joined him in the car when he opened the passenger door for her.

"God, you stink," he exclaimed when she got in. He sounded more amused by it than disgusted. He also sounded drunk, his words coming out slightly slurred. "When was the last time you even bathed?" She said nothing. "Dirty little slut." As he drove, his hand was already slipping into her pants, seeking out her pussy. She obediently spread her legs to help him.

"And how many guys you fucked since then, huh?" he asked, pumping her roughly with three fingers. "How many crusty old loads of jizz are in this cunt?" When the doll didn't answer, he laughed. "As talkative as ever, huh?" He pulled his fingers out of her pussy and jabbed them into her mouth instead, rolling them around her cheeks and tongue. "That's alright, slut. This mouth of yours wasn't made for talking, was it?" She shook her head.

He slid his fingers in deeper, until her involuntary response took over and she started to gag on them. "Yeah, there's my sexy throat slut," he said, not even looking in her direction as his digits twisted and pushed to keep her helplessly retching. "Got something long and thick to fill this gullet up when we get to where we're going." He wiped himself clean on her hair.

Where they were going was a fraternity house at Roosevelt University, where a party was dying down. There were signs that it had been a large gathering earlier in the night, but by now there was only a small group of students assembled in the common room, all men, and all at varying degrees of drunk or stoned. "Hey!" said the one who brought her. He belched. "I brought the after-party entertainment!"

“Jesus, Perry,” one of the others complained. “You fish her out of a fucking sewer or something? And the fuck is up with her face?”

Perry laughed. “Something like that, yeah. Don’t worry, she’s an ugly bitch and she stinks like shit, sure, but she’s got tight holes and the right attitude, don’t ya?” She nodded, and then jumped as he slapped her hard on the ass. “Show them what a good slut you can be.”

The doll knew what he wanted. She quickly stripped out of her clothes, drawing some whistles of appreciation. “Hell, even she knows she’s trash!,” said one of them, pointing at the brand on her stomach. “How many kinds of fucked up do you have to be to put shit like that on your body?”

“Makes things simple though, right?” Perry told him. “The one on her face, that told me she was for sale, but it was the other two that told me she likes it rough and filthy. The one on her ass isn’t completely true though: nobody who’s such a good cum dump should call themselves worthless.”

The doll didn’t try to use one of the several worn couches in the room; furniture was for people, not her. She laid down on the floor instead, on her back in the center of the room, then drew her legs up and used her fingers to spread her pussy and asshole wide open. “Please pound this slut’s holes, sirs,” she begged like she’d been trained to.

“See what I mean?” said Perry. He was already kneeling behind her head to rub his stiff cock on her face. She opened her mouth and let him sink into her throat, his hands in her hair to control her movements. “She’s street trash, but she’s the kinkiest street trash I’ve ever seen. Went out looking for a blowjob two weeks ago, and she damn near devoured my cock and begged for more. Just check this out.” He pushed in insistently, cutting off her air and making her gag. The doll tried to adjust, but he wrenched her head back in place and she realized that he didn’t just want her to suck on him; he wanted her to choke on him.

With her head buried in his crotch, she couldn’t see which one approached her other side, but she felt his thick cock sliding into her pussy. Like almost everyone who used her, he had no interest in foreplay, and immediately began fucking her in sharp strokes that felt like he was trying to smash her pelvis. Her response was to wrap her legs around him and hump against him at the same rough pace, ignoring the way each thrust felt like rubbing herself with sandpaper. “Damn,” he said appreciatively, “she is a cock hungry slut. Clenching me with her cunt like it can’t wait to gobble up my cum.” He slapped her breasts hard. “Am I right, trash can? You trying to guzzle cum with this tight cunny?” She nodded as much as Perry’s hands would allow her and continued fucking him back.

“You missed the latest Frosty while you were out,” one of the unseen spectators told Perry.

His grip on her hair tightened. “Fuck! Was it a good one?”

“Oh yeah. That bitch is seriously fucked in the head.”

“Not as much as if I got to have a piece of her,” Perry grumbled. He was slapping the broken doll’s face against his crotch at a quick, steady rhythm. She recognized his body language from her step father. He had no interest in actually having sex with her, not with her throat or any other hole on her body. Her throat was just a fleshlight for him to masturbate with. “I’d fuck Frosty’s face so hard my load would dribble out her ass. Is there a recording up online yet?”

The boy in her pussy laughed. “Where isn’t there a recording by now? The snow slut is ten times as popular fucking herself on camera than she ever was as a superhero.”

It had now been more than a minute since Perry had begun choking her with his cock, and her head was starting to spin. Old useless instincts told her to push him away so she could draw breath, but she ignored them. Her hands were busy holding her fuckholes open, and if he wanted to choke her, the only thing she should ever feel was gratitude that he’d found a use for her. She was just tits and holes, after all, and they existed for others to enjoy.

“Hey, I don’t think she can breathe like that,” one of the others interjected. She had no idea why he would care. “Let up, man.”

Perry did the opposite, pulling her tighter to him. “Fuck you,” he said cheerfully. “She’s just fine. Besides, if this little throat slut wants to breathe sooner, she should do a better job sucking out my cum. Not my fault if she’s a lazy bitch.” The doll did her best to nod. He was absolutely correct. If she was a better throatfuck for him, he would have cum already and she’d have gotten to breathe. It was her own fault that she was suffering. It was always her fault.

Another several minutes of spitroasting went on. Black spots were appearing in her vision and her head felt like it was going to burst, but the respite of passing out didn’t come. That was her power’s fault again, keeping her on the brink of unconsciousness without letting her go over. “See?” Perry said. “She’s a natural dick swallower! Lungs like a champ. She tasted my cock for a full ten minutes last time without ever dropping off.”

“Think it’s an aberration?” one of them asked.

“Gotta be, right?” another said. “Shit, now there’s a useful ability! Frosty would be mad jealous if she knew there’s a superpowered cocksucker sharing her turf!”

The one using her cunt suddenly started moving faster and more erratically. “Fuuuuuuck,” he groaned as his prick began to spit sticky slime into the doll’s unprotected pussy. His hands were on her tits, twisting her nipples to make her fucktunnel clench his pulsing shaft even harder. “I wanted to go longer, but this trash can’s cunt is just too good!” When he was finished shooting his load into her, he pulled out and wiped himself on her pubic mound. “Who’s next?”

One of his friends quickly replaced him while Perry continued plugging her throat with his fat cock. “How long can you last?” he wondered. “Twenty minutes? An hour? God, if I can make you choke on my meat all night, slut, I hope you weren’t planning on getting any sleep tonight!” The broken doll had no idea how long her power would torture her like this. Backdraft had choked her out plenty of times, but she’d had the collar back then to protect her from her power.

If she had ever needed proof that she was just worthless trash, this was it. An Ant’s ability might be useless, but hers was actively harming her. She was even lower than they were. Backdraft had done her a favor teaching her her place. The doll hung in that state of oxygen deprivation while another boy finished in her cunt, and a third began reaming out her ass. It was only then that Perry’s cock began to twitch. “I told you I’d make this worth your time, slut,” he told her. “Enjoy a bellyful of hot, tasty cum!” Even as he spoke, his warm seed was shooting down her throat.

The doll turned her head and coughed violently when he finally pulled out of her, splattering droplets of semen all over the floor. Her lungs heaved, gratefully taking in air. It smelled of cigarettes and alcohol and unwashed bodies, but it tasted sweet and pure after going without for so long. Her break was short-lived, however, as a new cock was forced down her throat just moments later. “That’s it, trash can,” said its owner. “Let me hear you gag on me. I’m gonna stuff every last inch in here.”

“Come on, ease off a little,” complained someone else. It was the one who’d wondered about her breathing earlier. “You didn’t even give her time to catch her breath!”

“Who the fuck cares?” said the one in her throat. “She’s just a whore, and you already saw she doesn’t need it, so stop being a little bitch and let me enjoy myself.”

“Just because she’s a prostitute doesn’t mean you can treat her like garbage,” the boy objected. “Seriously, let her breathe.”

“Or what, you’ll go back to your room and jack off in the dark?”

“Or maybe I’ll call Campus Security and see what they think about all this.”

The other one swore and pulled out of her. “Fucking buzzkill, man. Fine! We’ll let your girlfriend catch her breath before she swallows my cock.”

As the doll gasped for air, her defender crouched next to her. “Hey, you don’t have to take this from them,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you deserve better than that.”

The doll looked him in the eye. “No,” she told him. “I’m a worthless trash whore, and this is what I deserve.” Her lungs still burned, but she had a job to do. Without prompting, she grabbed the ass of the boy who’d been throatfucking her and pulled him towards her, forcing his cock all the way back down her throat.

The boy laughed. “See?! Just a greedy, kinky slut who loves all the attention. Now quit your bitching and watch how a master does it. Perry, you only lasted ten minutes in her, right? Fucking wimp. I bet you fifty bucks I can keep her throat plugged for the next twenty minutes straight before I shoot off.”

“I just needed to blow off some steam,” Perry said defensively. “Now that I’ve got that first load out, I can pound that throat for hours.”

“Yeah, well, get in line,” said the boy. “First the rest of us get to chokefuck this sword swallowing superslut, and then you can get a second go.”

The broken doll greeted the news of her fate with indifference. Fucktoys were made to be used, and no one in the world cared if she suffered. Least of all her.

**********

Hours later, the broken doll was still choking.

"Keep up the good work, throat slut," Perry encouraged. "You'll have me ready to go again in no time." His cock was soft and limp as she held it in her mouth, trying to coax it back to life with her tongue. The boy's fingers were casually pinching her nose while she worked, preventing her breathing for no other reason than his own amusement. She hadn’t been allowed to properly catch her breath more than a handful of times since the night had started. Most of her oxygen came from gasps and quick snippets of air here and there, usually in the span of time between one spent cock sliding out of her throat and the next eager one diving in. Dizziness, nausea, a pounding skull and aching lungs had become constant companions.

They were no longer in the common room of the frat house, the gangbang having finally run down at around two in the morning. Everyone had used her multiple times before they were satisfied, even the one who’d talked about helping her. After he’d seen what she really was, he’d raised no more objections about her treatment, and when his turn with her throat came, he’d choked her as enthusiastically as any of them. Once everyone was finished and started breaking up to get some sleep, Perry had asked her to spend the night in his room, promising a hot breakfast in the morning as compensation. She knew full well he just meant his cum, but that didn't matter. She'd followed him anyway. 

They were on his bed now, Perry laying on top and the doll kneeling between his legs. He was using the hand that wasn't suffocating her to prop a tablet on his chest. He wasn't even looking at her while she worked so hard to service him. The boy didn’t possess a hundredth of Backdraft’s sadism, but the way that he so casually treated her like nothing more than a walking fleshlight made her feel as small and pathetic as her former owner ever had. Not that it mattered, or that dolls felt anything in the first place. She was being used, and that was what mattered.

"Oh shit!" he said suddenly. "I forgot all about Frosty! She'll definitely get me rock hard." He moved the tablet to the side, so that the doll could see it from the corner of her eye. "I bet the snow slut's like your role model or something, right? Let's watch her new one together."

The doll hadn't seen Frost since Backdraft let her go two months ago. She’d assumed, not that dolls had any worthwhile thoughts in their head to begin with, that he’d gotten bored of her too eventually, and either thrown her out or killed her. The three weeks as his captive had felt like a lifetime, and she’d been walking the streets for more than three times as long as that. For Frost to have been with him for three entire months, most of them spent as the sole target of his sadism… it seemed unbelievable. The doll deserved everything she got, but Frost didn’t deserve any of this, certainly not a nightmare existence like that must be. The universe couldn’t be that cruel.

But there the white haired super was, kneeling submissively on the familiar bare floor with an assortment of items on the ground in front of her. She was markedly thinner, and there was a hollow, glassy look in her eyes, but she was otherwise the same, torn outfit and all. "Hello, all you wonderful people," she said with a warm smile. "Thank you for allowing Frosty to once again be your masturbation aid. As always, I promise to do my best to inspire your hard cocks and wet cunts." Her smile faded. "But before we get to that this time, there is something I must address."

Frost's eyes narrowed. "My ex-husband has been going around for the last two months spreading vicious lies and slander about me, and I am thoroughly sick of it. That limpdicked wimp can't stand the idea that I might enjoy expressing my sexuality, or that I have no interest in ever seeing him again, so he's been going around to the media whining that I must not be doing this voluntarily." Her fingers touched the black dog collar she wore. "He's even tried to claim that this must be hiding an animite collar. So why don't we take a look, together?" She undid the collar’s buckle and peeled it off, exposing the bare skin of her neck. "See?"

Frost put the collar back on, and then showed her fingers off to the camera. Ice spontaneously appeared on them, then melted just as quickly. "No animite, and here I still am." She stood up and twirled briefly in place, letting the camera see her entire body. "No restraints, no shackles, no animite. I am as free as I've ever been, and I choose... this. " She knelt back down.

Her smile returned. "That should be proof enough, but I think there are more fun ways I can show you my devotion to my new lifestyle too, don't you?" She picked up one of the items in front of her. "Well, not fun for most of you," she admitted, showing them the hole punch. “But for a pain slut like me..."

She brought the hole punch to her left nipple. There was an ugly sound as it pierced her flesh, and her smile tightened, but it didn't disappear. "Mmm," she purred. "This hurts sooooo good." She repeated the self mutilation with her right nipple.

When she was done, both of them sported bloody, visible holes. "I should have gotten my nipples pierced a long time ago," she confided, and licked some of the blood off the hole punch before setting it down. "But there's no time like the present. And now I can get a pair of new decorations!"

Pink plastic hearts dangled from the rings Frost put on her new piercings. They were small, but not so small that it was hard to read the sharp black lettering on them. "MAKE MY ASS YOUR CUM DUMP" the white haired woman read off one of them. "I chose that one because my asshole is my very favorite place to receive my boyfriend's cum, especially because Bruno was never man enough to stick it back there. There's nothing like feeling my lover's warm, sticky jizz soak my guts to know how much he loves me.”

She read the other. "MAKE MY WOMB YOUR TOILET. Mmm, ladies, have you ever let your man piss in your wet pussy after he uses it? It's unbelievable. I’ve let my womb go to waste all these years, but now it's finally found its true purpose. Every time I feel some of my lover's hot urine make it through my cervix, turning my womb into his own personal piss pocket, I know that I've found someone who truly understands me and treats me the way I deserve.”

Frost flicked both hearts. "Perfect, aren't they? I'm going to wear them for the rest of my life! But these aren't all..." She picked up the hole punch again. "I don't just want to see these on myself forever. I want to taste them." She stuck out her tongue and brought the hole punch up to it. Just before she did the deed, she winked at the camera.

She didn't talk for a moment after piercing her tongue, and when her voice did come out, it sounded a bit mushier, her tongue swelling up and making it harder to talk. "There! And now the best part." It was hard to see the heart while she was fitting the ring into the piercing, but when she was finished she stuck her tongue out to show it off. "MAKE MY THROAT YOUR COCKSLEEVE," she read happily. "My lover has fed me miles and miles worth of his cock by now, but I can never get enough of it. The only thing that tastes better than his thick, pulsing meat is when it's been seasoned by my own slutty holes. He may be the one in charge, but I never let him get away with pounding my cunt or ass without letting me have a good long taste of him after."

She picked up the hole punch again. "Just one left, and this is going to hurt," she announced as she began to stroke her clitoris. "Even a pain slut like me isn't going to enjoy this. But it has to be done. It's the only way my weak, worthless, cucked ex might see the truth and stop harassing me." Frost's gaze bore into the camera as she brought it to her crotch. "See what you're making me do, Bruno?"

The hole punch closed on her flesh, and Frost’s entire body shook with agony as she screamed. She stayed like that for more than a full minute, shaking too badly to move, but finally she managed to compose herself enough to put the hole punch down and give the camera a weak smile. “That… that wasn’t so bad,” she managed. “And it was worth it to get my clit properly decorated.”

Working the ring into her pierced clit seemed to hurt almost as much as piercing it had, and it took several attempts for her shaking fingers to succeed. “MAKE ME SQUEAL,” she read. “Pleasure or pain, I love them both. I live to be fucked and hurt and fucked some more. And not just by my lover, even though he’s magnificent at it.” She gave a pained grin. “He likes to share, and I love to be shared. Frosty the Snow Slut belongs to all of you. If I’ve ever made your cock stiff or your pussy damp, then think of me as your eager and willing sex slave, squealing while you penetrate me, squealing while you beat me, squealing while you show me what a bad, dirty girl I am.”

Her tone darkened again. “Except for you, Bruno. I will never be yours again. You’re going to shut your lying mouth and disappear, but before that, I want an apology. You’re going to go back to all those news outlets you’ve visited, and demand that they let you deliver a public statement from each and every one of them. Tell me how sorry you are for not treating me right all these years, how wrong you were to claim I’ve been kidnapped, and most importantly, wish me and my boyfriend a long and happy life together.” She picked up the hole punch and waggled it in front of the camera. “Because if you don’t, then I’m going to have make more videos like this one to show the world the truth.” She tapped the instrument against her cheek, leaving bright red smears of blood. “Is that really what you want?”

That wasn’t the end of the video, but the doll didn’t get to see the rest. Perry had grown hard again watching the former superhero, and the doll had to focus on pleasing him. As she massaged his cock with her throat, she listened to the sounds of Frost being used by Backdraft, the white haired woman moaning in feigned pleasure and begging him to fuck her harder. Even separated by time and distance, the two of them were still nothing but helpless fucktoys being fucked side to side. And all because of her. Because the broken doll had convinced herself for a little while that she was someone who mattered. Meaningless tears dripped down the doll’s face while she served her latest owner.

**********

It was a day after Perry had dropped her off on a random street, leaving her still sticky with cum inside and out. He’d paid her in the end with two singles crammed into her pussy, a third shoved up her asshole, and a handful of dirty coins dug from out his pocket that he’d put in her mouth and called a tip. She’d thanked him for it; it was still more money than many people had given her.

The industrial sector where she’d been held by Backdraft for three weeks had no foot traffic other than her this afternoon. Many of the buildings were abandoned, and most of those that weren’t were used for storage and visited only infrequently by shipping trucks. Occasionally a car passed her by on the way to somewhere else, but none of them so much as slowed down to look at her. People didn’t come to this part of the city looking for whores; going into an alley with someone around here was more likely to get you stabbed and your wallet stolen than your cock sucked.

The doll didn’t know why she’d found herself wandering around here, where she knew that Frost was still being abused.. It wasn’t as though she cared about the woman. Dolls couldn’t care about anything. They couldn’t be curious or feel guilty either. Even if she wanted to help, and that was impossible, there was nothing a half-starved sex toy like her could do. But here she was anyway. She reminded herself that it didn’t matter where she was, every place in the city was the same. No matter the address, all the doll had to do was walk the streets and wait to find someone who wanted to use her. Or until her legs grew too tired and she collapsed and slept where she was. Either way, she could do that just as easily here as anywhere else.

She’d only seen the outside of the car factory once, on her way out, but she recognized it immediately. The place looked so plain and dull from the outside, revealing no hint of the suffering and sex that went on in there daily. It was just a brown lump of a building that was almost entirely windowless. The only exception was the line of mostly broken windows that ran just under the roof to let in some sunlight. They were far too high up to reach, and when inside there had been no way to climb up to them. The doll had looked up at those windows and their illusion of freedom thousands of times.

The doll had no reason to get any closer to the building. She had no reason to stay away either. After all, if Backdraft had any interest in her, she’d still be in there. Its presence was meaningless. She wasn’t walking towards or away from it, just aimlessly, looking for customers. If she happened to walk such that it never left her sight, if her meandering sent her closer and closer until she could reach out and touch it, that was all just random chance, not intent.

The doll heard familiar laughter drifting through some of the broken windows, and it made her guts clench. Backdraft was amused about something, and nothing amused him more than abusing his property. So many of her worst experiences with him had been accompanied by that sound. But he’d thrown her away. The laughter wasn’t directed at her anymore, even though she knew he would laugh himself sick to see what had become of her. It didn’t matter, and she didn’t need to know the reason behind it. But even as she tried to turn away and go somewhere else, that last ember of life in her refused. It wanted to know what had become of Frost. It needed to know what more she’d done to the woman.

The doll studied the windows, and made herself a deal. She would go up there, and she would look. And then, after she’d seen the reminder of her utter failure as a human being… she would jump. The roof was only about four stories up, but the ground was all solid concrete. It wouldn’t be an instant death, but it would get the job done, and it would still be faster and cleaner than starvation. All of her, doll and human, agreed that it would be for the best. For her, and for the world. It didn’t need trash like her around.

The wall of the factory couldn’t be climbed from the inside, but the outside was a different story, the crumbling exterior offering plenty of handholds. Once, her power would have let her climb up it as easily as someone else might climb stairs, but it was only a faint shadow inside her now, and by the time she reached the top, she was out of breath and dizzy, her entire body on the verge of collapse. She was certain she couldn’t climb back down, and wasn’t even sure she’d have the strength to jump when it came time. One way or another, she wouldn’t leave this place alive.

The doll could hear talking from down there, and recognized the baritone of Backdraft’s voice, but it was too faint to make out what he was saying. She laid facedown on the roof and let her head hang over the side to look through one of the windows. It was dusty and smeared with grime, but her eyes adjusted to it, and as she watched the two figures inside, the quiet sounds resolved into words.

“Let’s go over the thank you one more time,” Backdraft was saying, his face creased by a wide and unpleasant grin. “I want to be sure it sounds right, that you’re really rubbing it in the wimp’s face. I still can’t believe he actually did it! I knew he was a little pissant, but I thought he at least had a pair of balls swinging between his legs. How pathetic do you have to be to tell the man who kidnapped your wife to enjoy her?”

Frost was on her knees busy licking his cock, but she pulled away long enough to answer, her voice soft but firm. “He was trying to help me, and you know it, Cyrus. That was the entire point of the last video.”

“Was he, though?” Backdraft taunted. “You’ve become quite a good actress, Fela. Maybe he really believed you. A whole lot of other people sure did. Used to only be 70-30 or so out there who thought you were really doing all this voluntarily, but after the trick with the collar barely anyone is denying that anymore. I’m not even sure how much of that was faked. If you didn’t really want to be here deep down, surely you would’ve broken character and tried to call for help at least once before I could stop you. And what better chance would you get than the very last time you’ll ever not have that collar around your neck?”

“I’m not a fool, Cyrus,” Frost said. “I know you aren’t really streaming these live. I imagine there’s a two minute delay in case I ever give things away, accidentally or on purpose.”

“Five minutes, actually,” he said with a smile. “Doesn’t hurt to be too careful.”

“So I did what I had to do,” Frost continued. “To stop you from hurting anyone else. You said-”

Backdraft slapped her face lightly with his cock, and she obediently stopped talking and got back to work. “I know what I said, Fela, and I meant every word. If you’d tried something while the collar was off, even the tiniest little unscripted ice cube, I would’ve enjoyed making good on my promise and bringing some new girls here to torture. I know at least eight I’d love to ram my cock into. But you were a good little fucktoy, for now, so I’ll keep being satisfied with just you.”

He laughed. “God, you really are such a vain cunt, though! Even after three months, you still insist on pretending to be a hero.”

“I’m not pretending to be anything,” Frost insisted, and then gurgled as he grabbed the back of her head with one hand and forced her to swallow his entire length. A long rod of flame appeared in his other hand and he snapped it down on her backside, making her gurgle again and leaving a bright burn mark behind.

“That was for lying,” Backdraft said. “Spare me the bullshit, Fela. No one here to impress.” He hit her again. “We both know the only difference between any of us supers is advertising. Ever since Aberrants appeared, the world has belonged to us. We do what we want, when we want, with no one to stop us but each other. All that tripe about good and evil, superheroes and supervillains, it’s just what the mundanes and Ants tell each other to feel better about being serfs.”

He was right, of course. It was the same truth the doll had realized years ago. The ones called heroes were just the supers who played along with the lie so that the masses would worship them. None of them really cared about the rest of the world.

There were ten burn marks in a line before Backdraft let go of Frost’s head so she could pull back and take a breath. “Just because... you’re a sociopath...” the white haired woman panted, “doesn’t mean... everyone else is too... I’ve never considered myself a hero, and I’m not trying to impress anyone.”

“If that’s true, you’re even more stupid than I thought,” declared Backdraft as he fed her his cock again. He didn’t keep his hand on her head this time, but she made no attempt to draw back. “If it was just pride, that I could respect slightly. That’s why I thought you did the videos at first. Even as a cum stained fucktoy, you were able to make that street rat think you were her savior. The rainbow slut is probably out there building a fucking shrine to you right now.”

He hooked his index fingers into her nipple rings and pulled, making the super scream around his prick. “But now you’re seriously telling me you just wanted to help her out? That you destroyed the reputation you spent the last two decades building up, and created a new one as one of the sluttiest cock starved bitches in the world, just to selflessly rescue some random piece of shit?”

“I don’t suppose... you’ve heard of the starfish parable either...” Frost said next time she came up for air. “Part of taking on the mantle of Frost was accepting that I could never help everyone. No matter how amazing I was, or how hard I worked, there would always be people out there I couldn’t save, and worse, people I could save but wouldn’t know about in time.”

She looked up at him, and even from a distance the doll could see the fire in her eyes. “But I could save some. Not all, not most, not enough to make a dent. But if I could save some, even just one person, that would make it all worth it. Because even if I couldn’t save the whole world, to those people, I would have made a difference. Their lives would be better because I was in them, and that’s the most any of us can really do for anyone.”

“You’re so full of shit your eyes should be brown,” Backdraft told her. “Lick my balls, oh great and noble superhero.” Frost obeyed. “You might tell yourself all that to make yourself feel better, but you know it’s not true. We’ve made, what, twenty two videos by now? Twenty three? With hundreds more to go before I get bored of watching you humiliate yourself. And in between videos, you take my cock in every hole, drink my piss, eat out my ass, get beaten and burnt for fun, and the most your hard work ever gets you is a tin of dog food every once in a while so you don’t get too worn out to fuck me properly."

He put his thumbs on her eyelids to force her to look up at him while she tongued him. “Yeah, I know the stupid starfish story, Fela. But you’re not some little kid who gets to throw a few in the water and then go home happy.” His cock began to pulse and shoot, leaving lines of cum across the woman’s face. “All you managed to rescue was a single broken, worthless one, and you’ve fucking drowned yourself to do it. You’re gonna look me in the eye, Fela, and tell me you don’t regret choosing to help that girl? That it’s all worth it for the sake of a pathetic street rat who will never be anything more than a rainbow colored fleshlight?”

“It mattered to that one,” Frost said fiercely, as though that was the only answer she needed.

Tears blurred the doll’s vision, and she pulled herself up and crawled away from the window, not wanting to see or hear anymore. She didn’t feel anything. She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t... she was dimly aware that she’d curled up into a ball and was now rocking back and forth.

Frost was wrong and Backdraft was right. What the super had done was stupid. The world wasn’t some kind, loving place where people helped each other. It was a cruel competition where the only person you could afford to care about was yourself, and reaching a hand out to anyone just opened up an opportunity to get hurt. Frost was living proof of that. If she hadn’t deluded herself, someone with power like hers could have had anything she wanted.

That was just how the world was. How it had always been. The strong and the weak, the winners and the losers. The doll could admit that she’d been wrong about Frost’s intentions, but that didn’t change anything. It didn’t matter that there really was at least one good, selfless person out there. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to help her. The world was still the world.

She forced herself up to her feet. It was the world she’d been trapped in all her life, and the one she was about to escape. If she’d been smarter, she would have done this years ago. The doll took one trembling step at a time towards the edge. It was better this way.

She didn’t owe Frost anything, and she couldn’t do anything to help the woman.

She’d never been more than worthless trash.

Trash like her could never be saved.

Trash like her could never save anyone else.

She was at the edge now. The doll stared down at the ground, willing herself to finish what she'd started. She was almost free. It would all be over with just one more step.

What do I want?

The question appeared inside her own head. Its presence was nothing new; it had been there for a long time now. It had been there these entire last two months on the street, and during her imprisonment with Backdraft, and even before that, when she was still calling herself a person. It was a question that she’d been running from since the day she’d slipped in the shower and accidentally driven a hole in the wall. Since five seconds after she’d driven her stepfather out, when she’d realized that she didn’t actually have any idea what to do next. She’d tried to ignore it, drown it out, pretend it wasn’t there, but still it persisted. And now, as she drew near her last few seconds of life, it hung there in perfect deafening silence, demanding an answer before she left. What do I want?

Nothing. Dolls didn't want anything. Dolls couldn't want anything. 

What do I want?

Nothing.

What do I want?

Nothing.

What do I want?

Nothing!

What do I want?

To stop thinking, stop feeling, stop hurting. For it to all just stop.

What do I want?

To not have to be here anymore.

What do I want?

To just end it.

What do I want?

That's it.

What do I want?

There's nothing else.

What do I want?

Stop...

What do I want?

Please stop...

What do I want?

I don't!

What do I want?

NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.

What do I want?

Please...

What do I want?

Please don't make me say it...

What do I want?

I can't have it!

What do I want?

What good is it to want it when I can’t have it!

What do I want?

What I want doesn't matter! It's never mattered!

What do I want?

I don't matter!

What do I want?

The girl let out a sob and sank to her knees. "I want to live!" she wailed out loud. "And I want to deserve to live! I want to stop hating myself!" Backdraft had only finished a process that Randall had started. Ever since the first time her stepfather had pinned her down, she’d told herself that she deserved what happened to her. That was why he was willing to do those things to her. That was why her mother didn’t try harder to stop him. That was why no heroes came to save her like they did in all the books and shows and movies.

What do I want?

Before that had happened, she’d loved superheroes more than anyone. But not because she expected that they’d come and help her if she was ever in trouble. She’d loved them because she’d wanted to be like them. It hadn’t mattered that she was just an Ant, a nobody, a poor kid living in a Chicago slum. She’d believed that anyone could be a hero, even her. Randall’s violation had shattered that belief. If she couldn’t save herself, if she wasn’t worth saving, how could she possibly do the same for others? How could she go on thinking that she could ever do or be anything special?

What do I want?

"I want to save her!" she sobbed. "Please, I just want to save her!" The admission broke something inside of her, and for a long time Lira stayed there on the edge of the rooftop, crying.

She was cold and hungry and everything hurt so much more than it had a few minutes ago. Part of her longed to return to the state she’d just left, to go back to being an empty vessel that didn’t have to hurt or think or feel. But she resisted. Lira felt more awake than she had in months, and more like herself than she had in years. She felt alive again, and it was painful and exhausting and she didn’t want to go back. She was done being a doll. She was alive, and she was going to do something with that life.

There was no such thing as heroes. But that didn't matter.

She was a fool to think she could make a difference. That didn't matter either.

She was going to rescue Fela or die trying.

Lira gathered up all of her power, actively manipulating it for the first time since she'd fought Backdraft. She'd had far more of it back then than she did now, but that was just one more thing that didn't matter. At least she’d meet her end as a human being, standing on her own two feet. She still didn’t want to die, but it would be a better fate than remaining the walking, breathing, and lifeless creature she’d been for so long. She sent the energy back through her body to heal herself. Despite not using it for so long, it obeyed her easily, and she felt its familiar warmth spreading through her.

While it worked, she stripped out of her ragged clothes. They were only going to get in her way, and she was well past the need for modesty by now. The TRASH brand on her stomach was almost gone by the time she was naked, and it vanished completely as she watched. The tingling sensation on her face and backside told her that the same thing was happening to her other two brands.

She'd expected her power to be completely exhausted before she was fully healed, but to Lira's surprise, not only did it finish the job, it felt no weaker afterward. It had seemed like so little before, but taking control of it was like squeezing a sponge, more energy pouring out than she’d been able to sense before. Maybe this wouldn't be as hopeless as it felt. She played with her power for a few minutes like she had in the old days, running it up and down her limbs. She could have done so much more with this gift than petty theft.

The smart thing to do was to wait for Backdraft to leave, like he always did eventually. The smarter thing was to go to the police. But both those options meant leaving Fela with him longer, and Lira refused to do that. She was afraid of Backdraft, absolutely terrified of the man, but the fury she felt was far greater. She didn't just want him gone, she wanted to smash his fucking teeth in, and the sooner the better. Besides, she'd never been good at doing the smart thing.

As she readied herself for what was almost definitely going to be suicide, she felt a third emotion behind the fear and anger. She didn't believe it at first, but it persisted until she was finally forced to acknowledge it, her lips parting in a smile.

This was going to be fun.

**********

Perry idly stroked himself while he watched Frosty's latest livestream, his mind wandering to other places. She was great, as usual, but it had been much better with that whore's mouth around him last time. He'd have to try and find her again soon. It wasn't like an ugly cunt like her was going to be too backed up with customers. And such a skinny thing needed her protein, right?

Frosty was lying on top of a table with her legs hanging over the sides, bound together at the ankles by a chain that ran underneath. It wasn’t the chain that was making her hold so still, though, it was the tall nail that went through her clit ring and into the table. She couldn’t move her pelvis more than a couple centimeters in any direction without tearing the ring out of her clit, which had to make the vibrator buzzing inside her pussy a special kind of hell. Her hands were still free, and she was in the middle of using them to demonstrate how useful her new nipple rings were for titfucking.

The camera didn’t show anything of her boyfriend above the waist, but it showed his cock clearly enough, throbbing as it was enveloped and massaged by her soft flesh. Frosty’s mouth hung open, tongue out, ready to catch his seed when he finished. Her face was already sticky with his cum, her eyes gummed up so much that she was struggling to keep them open. At the start of the livestream she’d claimed that her goal was to fill her entire mouth with her boyfriend’s jizz, but it looked doubtful that she was going to manage anywhere near that much before she’d completely drained his balls. Perry was less interested in her attempt than he was in how she’d be punished for failing. He couldn’t wait to see what that freaky little painslut did to herself next.

Frosty was just about to taste her boyfriend’s baby batter yet again when there was a painfully loud sound from above them, like metal ripping and tearing, and bits of debris fell to the ground. Perry sat up straight, suddenly giving the video his complete attention. What the...?

A moment later something larger hit the ground, a human figure that landed in a crouch, and Perry's jaw dropped. It was a girl about the same age as him, and she was naked and glowing and …absolutely beautiful. She rose to her feet, her hair warm and golden, her skin shining with a soft light that filled the room. He’d never seen anything like her.

"Who the hell are you?!" snarled a male voice. Frosty’s boyfriend had dismounted from the woman and now he stalked forward, fully entering the frame. As far as Perry could remember, it was the first time the large, well-muscled man had spoken or shown his face on video. No wonder, with an ugly, scarred mug like that. But all the same, there was something oddly familiar about his face that tugged at Perry’s memory. Where had he seen him before?

There was a bright light, and then the man was off his feet and flying backwards, striking something offscreen with a loud crunch. "What, you don't recognize me, asshole?" the girl spat, her glowing hand still raised. “I’m the fucking starfish!”

Lines of fire shot across the screen and- oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! The man reappeared on screen, and Perry knew where'd he'd seen him before now. Fucking Backdraft was attacking the girl - Starfish? - but she dodged most of it, moving impossibly fast. She couldn’t evade all of the whips, but the few that struck her just bounced off her skin without leaving a mark. One whip curled around her arm and she yanked on it, nearly sending Backdraft airborne again before he let go.

The bald man glanced at the camera and chuckled. He was breathing hard, and that energy attack of hers had left him looking banged up and bleeding, but he didn’t seem at all worried. “Well, guess that cat’s out of the bag. Don’t worry, I bet Frosty is gonna have even more viewers now that they know you’re just a helpless piece of rape meat. Won’t have to hold back on camera anymore either!”

“Fela, get out of here!” called the naked girl. “I can hold the fucker off.” She sent out another blast of light from her hand, but this time Backdraft took the blow full on, grunting as he absorbed the impact while staying on his feet. It didn’t seem like anywhere near as powerful a beam as the first. What’s more, the glow around her was becoming noticeably dimmer.

“Don’t even think about it, Fela,” the bald man said. “You so much as breathe too deeply while I’m taking care of the street rat, and your next video will be a snuff film. And so will the dozen I make after that, starting with your husband as my next star.” Frost didn’t argue, remaining as still as a mannequin in her position on the table.

Starfish cracked her knuckles slowly, her posture confident and relaxed, like she wasn’t a naked, unarmed woman facing one of the most dangerous supervillains ever. "Big words from a man about to get forcefed his own teeth. You wanna threaten a bus full of schoolchildren too while you're at it? Promise to kick some dogs?"

Two thick cudgels made of fire sprouted from Backdraft’s hands as he gave her a nasty grin. “I won’t lie, slut, it’s good to see you. I missed those tits and holes of yours.” He charged forward at her, swinging one cudgel at her head. She blocked it with her forearms, but she wasn’t fast enough to stop him from slamming the other into the side of her stomach. She let out a whuff of breath and stumbled to the side from the momentum, nearly losing her balance and tumbling to the floor. “Just look at you! You went out and got yourself some fresh spirit, then came right back to let me beat and fuck it out of you again! What a sweetheart.”

He was too aggressive to let her retaliate, forcing her to focus on blocking and dodging the powerful blows. Her back hit a wall and he didn’t miss the opportunity to get right up next to her. He carelessly let the flame cudgels fall, the weapons fading away as they broke contact. His hands seized hold of her breasts instead, grabbing two big handfuls of her as he pinned her up against the wall. “We’ve still got plenty of time before anybody finds us, street rat, and thousands of folks watching. Did you come here so I’d make you a pornstar too? Yeah, that’s gotta be it. I bet you were jealous of Frosty getting all the attention, weren’t you?” One hand kept eagerly mauling her breasts while the other moved downward to penetrate her with three fingers. “Mmm, even tighter than I remember. I’ll enjoy wearing it out again. I’ll even let you go after, if you promise you’ll give yourself another pep talk and come find me again for a rematch. Wouldn’t mind getting to pound you back into a fucktoy over and o-”

Starfish’s head snapped forward, her forehead making an audible thump as it collided with Backdraft’s face. The bald man staggered backwards, blood spurting from his broken nose. The blonde girl balled up her fist and slugged him in the stomach, hitting him hard enough to make his feet leave the ground for a moment. She tried to follow up on the attack, but a wall of flame appeared between the two of them, giving Backdraft the cover to put some distance between them.

The two fighters stared each other down across the roaring flames that separated them. “Wouldn’t mind getting to pound you over and over either,” Starfish said, raising her fists and beckoning him to come at her again. “So come on, motherfucker. Let’s smash.”

“That was a big mistake, bitch,” Backdraft growled, no longer looking at all amused about the situation. “You want a real fight? Wanna pretend you’re a fucking superhero? Then die like one.” He dismissed the wall with a wave of his hand, then extended his arms to send more flame whips directly at the girl. She tried to deflect them like before, but these ones didn't bounce off. They clung to her instead like they were made of glue. Starfish cursed and ripped them off of her, but Backdraft was already firing more at her. Not just a handful, but dozens of them all at once, maybe even hundreds, all sticking to her bare form and causing her obvious pain. In a matter of seconds she was wrapped up in a burning cocoon made up of multiple layers. The binding was skintight, and Perry could see her body squirming as she fought to escape.

The bald man gave the camera a quick smirk, countless fiery strands extending from his palms. "Fun fact, boys and girls: I almost called myself Spider when I was first making my way in the world. But I had a nasty habit of killing every last cunt I tried to use this particular trick on, and that wasn't much fun, y'know? Had to go easier on them if I wanted them bouncing on my cock after. But this uppity little bitch..." He swung his arms sharply to the side, and the entire building shook as the trapped girl slammed into a wall. "I think she might be tough enough to take it!" he shouted over the noise. "Just gonna come out the other end as hot, tender fuckmeat!" His arms jerked again, sending her smashing into the opposite wall. "And if not, that's okay too! I still have the snow slut around to keep my balls drained!"

He rammed her against the walls a third time, and a fourth, dust shaking from the ceiling with every impact. “You heroes like to name all those fancy moves of yours, right Fela?” he asked, chuckling. “Why don’t we call this one the ol’ sack of kittens?” One of the hits was so strong that the camera jittered and fell on its side, making the room rotate and obscuring Frost from view. Backdraft lifted the bound super with his flames, letting her body hang in midair. There was no more movement inside the cocoon, and her posture was limp and lifeless. Backdraft shook her a couple times to no reaction. "Taking a nap, whore?" the bald man taunted. "Or is there nothing left in there but some bloody meat?" He raised his arms up, lifting her until the top of her head almost brushed the ceiling. "Either way, I'm about to give you the hardest pounding of your life," he promised.

His arms swung down faster than any of his previous attacks, hurling the girl down like he wanted to crack the concrete floor with her body. She offered no movement or defense as she smashed into the ground with all the force of a speeding train. Except... there was no sense of impact like before, no vibration that shook the building. She struck the concrete soundlessly, and her body didn't so much as twitch as it connected.

Perry didn't understand what had happened, and Backdraft's sour expression made it plain that he was equally mystified. He raised her all the way back up, and then slammed her all the way back down, as hard as before. And to as little effect. He might as well have been tapping her with a pillow for all the reaction the contact produced. "You little... little... bitch!" the bald man snarled, no longer sounding as confident as before. He didn't know what was happening either. He swung her against a wall again, but this time it was as ineffective as the floor had been. So was the next try, and the next. "You fucking cunt! You..." He stopped.

Perry saw what he he’d noticed. It looked like Starfish had struck the wall, but... she hadn't. She was close, bare millimeters away from it, but no closer. “Who the fuck are you…?” Backdraft whispered, staring at the hovering girl. In answer, the cocoon moved again, this time not under the supervillain’s control. It slowly drifted back to the center of the room on its own power, levitating several feet above the ground. A white light could be seen through the minute cracks between the flame webs. It was a soft, dull light at first, but it steadily grew and grew, until the cocoon pulsed with it.

And then it all burst out in every direction, the flames melting away as the light washed over them. The entire cocoon crumbled, leaving only the girl there, still hovering in mid-air. She hadn’t gotten away unscathed from Backdraft’s assault. She was panting hard, blood matted her hair, bruises and burns lined her whole body, and her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle. But she wore a fierce grin, like she didn’t even notice the damage. “I’m your worst nightmare, baldy,” she told Backdraft, lifting a shaking, soot stained hand to flip him off. “A bitch who won’t do as she’s told.”

She swayed slightly from side to side, as though testing out the movement. “Thanks for the practice, by the way. I was a little rusty when it came to flying, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

Backdraft cast more whips at her and she shifted in the air, dodging them clumsily but successfully. Then she took the offensive, rocketing straight at him, and a swarm of tentacle-like flames shot out of the man’s hands to intercept her. She already had her left hand raised, palm’s glow rapidly intensifying. The white beam that came out and swept over the room was gone as soon as it appeared, but it was enough to sever most of the flames’ connection to Backdraft and make them dissolve.

The few remaining ones latched onto her, and the sudden sizzle announced that she was no longer at all immune to their heat, but Starfish didn’t slow down or try to brush them off. She just continued streaking forward, intent on reaching Backdraft. Another wall of flame appeared at the last moment to block her, but she barreled straight through it this time, and her fist crunched into his face. The blow knocked the man off his feet and sent him skidding across the floor on his back while the girl landed neatly. His body thumped against the legs of a worktable and then stopped. He didn’t move.

The entire aerial charge and their exchange of abilities had taken less than ten seconds. “That’s what I’m talking about…” Starfish panted, letting her fist drop to her side. All of the remaining flames had vanished when Backdraft hit the ground. She giggled. “Guess your days as a pretty boy are over…” She stiffened suddenly, and began limping towards something out of the camera’s view. When the fight first started, she’d been dodging attacks as gracefully as a dancer, but now she stumbled and swayed like it was a struggle just to stay on her feet. The light beneath her skin was barely a glimmer. “Fela!” she said urgently. “Fela! Come on, we’re getting out of here!”

“That sounds… like a wonderful idea,” Frost said weakly. “You were incredible, by the way.”

Starfish must not have been looking in Backdraft’s direction, because neither woman reacted as the man stirred, slowly and quietly rising to his feet. His face was a mask of blood, nose flattened and most of his teeth gone, and there was a vicious look in his eyes. “I…” the girl stuttered, sounding embarrassed, completely unaware of the monster drawing closer. “I was just… l-let’s go, okay? You can tell me how awesome I was later.” There was the sound of tearing metal. “There, that’s the chain gone. Let me just get your collar and we can-”

A twisting web of flame burst from Backdraft’s hands and Starfish let out a choked cry from offscreen. The man pulled backwards, trying to bring her closer. She seemed to be putting up a fight, but after a minute she lost the tug-of-war and was dragged back into view. Several dozen fire whips were coiled around her limbs, neck, and torso, and from the way her mouth flapped desperately, she couldn’t breathe. “You dirty fucking cunt,” he snarled, and yanked hard on the whips, flinging her at a wall again. This time there was no hovering, no lack of impact. Starfish hit it dead on, several ribs shattering with a loud crunch.

The second hit broke her right leg.

The third broke her neck.

By the time he stopped, the blonde super was a battered, twisted and scorched thing. Her eyes were closed, her body limp, and the light beneath her skin had gone dark. If she wasn’t already dead, she would be in minutes. But that wasn’t enough for Backdraft. He lifted her up to the ceiling like he had before, except that this time, he didn’t bother taunting her with what was coming. He just let out an wordless cry of triumph and hurled her shattered body at the ground.

And a pillar of ice rose to meet her.

It grew straight up from the floor, spreading up and out like an open palm, and when it struck Starfish, there was no collision. It swallowed her up instead, arresting her momentum, dousing the flames around her, and leaving her frozen in the pillar’s center like a gruesome ice sculpture. Backdraft scowled. “That was a very stupid thing to do, Fela, even for you.”

Frost entered the frame, the collar gone from her neck. Little else had changed about her physical appearance: she was still wearing the obscene parody of her outfit, still had pink plastic hearts dangling from her piercings, still had the large tattoo that said FROSTY emblazoned across her chest. But the poise with which she now held herself made her look almost like a completely different person. She laid a hand on the ice encasing Starfish. "Sleep well, child," she said, softly patting it. "I can take it from here." Then she turned to look at Backdraft. "It's over, Cyrus."

"Put your fucking collar back on," the bald man snarled. Defeating Starfish had clearly taken a great deal out of him, but he still looked like more than a match for his gaunt, tired prisoner. "I’m giving you one chance, Fela, and it’s only because you’ve been such a good cum dump these three months and I’ll miss those tight holes when you’re gone. Put on your collar, crawl over here, and suck my cock while I smash the street rat into a thousand pieces. I’ll write this moment off as female hysterics, and I’ll let you get back to being my pornstar fucktoy.” Flames wreathed his hands. “Or you can die like a dog right here with her, knowing that I'm going to walk out of this place and make this entire city burn for your disobedience."

The white haired woman shook her head. "No, Cyrus. I'm done cooperating with you. But I’ll give you a chance too: are we going to do this the easy way, or do I get to enjoy myself for the first time in months?" Perry must have seen her smile a thousand times by now in her videos, but they had nothing on the one she wore right now.

Backdraft's response was to send a hail of fire at her from his outstretched fingertips. Frost swept her own hand out and countered with a blast of ice that made great bouts of steam billow out in all directions when they collided. Perry leaned closer, staring intently at the picture. He couldn't make out details through the steam, but he could see the two silhouettes attacking each other with heat and cold. Spears of ice shot out from the walls and floor, and waves of fire blanketed the whole room. When the air cleared less than a minute later, virtually everything in view was frozen or melted or both. Even the camera wasn't unscathed, the image distorted and lens cracked.

Frost looked even more exhausted than before, but otherwise the same. Backdraft, though... the man was covered from the neck down in writhing cords of flame, much like the ones he’d trapped Starfish in. He'd already been a big man, but now he rose up to at least eight feet, and was nearly as wide as he was tall. An ice spear shot towards him from somewhere offscreen, its sharp tip aimed right at his head, and he blocked it with a fiery forearm, ice melting away harmlessly at the point of contact.

The armored man launched himself forward at Frost like a cannonball, moving incredibly fast for someone so large. His massive fist missed her by inches, the fatigued woman still quicker than he was, and went through the solid wall like it was butter. The attack was immediately followed by another, and another, each one only barely evaded by the super. Backdraft continued the relentless assault, destroying everything he touched, while she kept darting away from him, nimble enough to dodge, but not enough to put more distance between them.

"You were always special to me, Fela!" he shouted as he came close enough to singe the tips of her hair. "The other cunts, they were all just for fun, but you? You're the only one I’ve ever hated. I spent years rotting in prison because of you and your fucking do-gooder attitude!"

It was all Frost could do to evade him now, and it was a losing battle. Her aberration-enhanced speed on the frozen floor was the only reason she wasn’t dead already, and that was rapidly melting under Backdraft’s heat. The two of them circled throughout the room, the ice that was keeping her alive steadily shrinking. Twice she tried to generate more of it, and both times the distraction nearly got her killed. "You went to prison because you're a horrible monster who raped and murdered for the sheer pleasure of it, Cyrus. I was just karma."

"And now you're nothing,” he hissed. He was gradually cornering her, leading her to a dead end where the floor was bare and she’d be unable to escape. It was even odds she’d even last that long, her movements growing noticeably slower and clumsier as she tired further. “Just a simpering, nympho pain slut who degrades herself in front of the whole world for cheap thrills.”

“I’m not Frosty,” the white haired woman said. “That’s never been anything more than your sick game.”

“You think any of the people watching care about that? Most of them never even heard of you before you became Frosty, and no one gives a fuck about some washed up superhero. You know what they’re all gonna do after I kill you? After a little moment of silence for poor old Frost, who died fighting the good fight? They’re gonna go find something else to jack off to, because that’s all you ever were to them.”

The end of the battle came in an instant. Frost dodged one of his sweeping attacks just like she’d been doing, but this time her foot came down wrong and her ankle twisted, sending her tumbling onto her back. Before she could even begin to get up or move, Backdraft was right there. The fire coating the bottom of his foot vanished so that he could plant it on her stomach and pin her against the ground. She groaned as his weight pressed down on her, but offered no resistance and made no attempt to twist free and escape, knowing that she was utterly helpless to stop him from killing her if she tried anything.

The supervillain towered over her, his flames dancing and roiling around him as he basked in his victory. Frost looked so small and weak by comparison, half his size and struggling just to draw breath. “Any last words, Fela?” he asked. “Maybe if you beg nice, I’ll make it quick, yeah?”

“I… do have a request actually…” the fallen super panted. “Could you… move just a hair to the left? Want to… make sure the camera gets… a good angle on your face… when you look up…”

Backdraft glanced up, and his eyes widened. And then several thousand gallons of water came crashing down on the entire room.

Another huge cloud of steam came up as his flames were instantly extinguished. When it dissipated moments later, everything except Frost herself was coated in a thick layer of ice. She wriggled out from under his foot and brushed herself off, and while she was clearly exhausted, there was no trace of the lethargy and clumsiness she’d displayed near the end of the fight. “Thank you for your assistance, Cyrus,” she said. “I can’t even remember the last time I had to make that much ice at once, and I’m not a spring chicken anymore. It would have been much more work to get it all done fast enough if you hadn’t generously drawn things out. You even provided heat to help melt it faster; it wouldn’t have been very professional of me to smash your head open with a solid block.”

She’d covered Backdraft in a good five or six inches of ice, but she’d left his head free, albeit soaked. He didn’t look pleased at the sudden reversal, but he didn’t seem all that upset either. “You don’t even have the balls to kill me,” he crowed, and gave her a vicious grin made gruesome by his missing teeth. “Sorry, is this where I’m supposed to repent my wicked ways and apologize? Curse my defeat? The thing of it is, Fela, I got to enjoy three full months with my sexy snow slut. And I get to savor those memories forever. Hell, I’ve got buddies who can sneak in some of my favorite videos of you to beat off to, which means even when I’m back in my cell, you’ll still be the one responsible for every last load of cum out of me. As far as I’m concerned, this was just a nice little vacation with some great souvenirs.” He winked at her. “And maybe I’ll make it out again eventually and come look you up, yeah? See if we can recapture the Frosty magic?”

Frost sighed. “Oh, Cyrus…” she said sympathetically. She disappeared for a minute, then came back with a metallic collar that she buckled around his neck. “You really think I’m just going to send you back to prison? “

If the threat was intended to faze the man, it didn’t work. “Changed your mind about leaving me alive then? So do it. It’s a kill or be killed world, Fela, and I had a good run.” His gaze shifted to the camera. “Keep your eyes peeled, folks. Either she’s going to pussy out and spare me, or she’s going to prove how bullshit all her hero nonsense is by killing me in cold blood.”

“I’m choosing a third option, actually,” the white haired woman told him. “How are you feeling in there, Cyrus? It was cold at first, but it’s fading, right? That’s the numbness setting in.”

He laughed. “What, you think you’re not a murderer if you just stand back and let me freeze to-”

“I’m not letting you freeze to death,” Frost said, cutting him off. “On the contrary, I’m going to make certain you survive this. Do you know what that numbness is, Cyrus? It’s frostbite. It goes cold, then numb, and then gangrene. You know what they do to limbs after gangrene sets in, right?”

Backdraft’s face paled slightly, but he sneered at her. “You were a better actress when you were playing Frosty. I know you’re bluffing.”

Frost smiled at him. “Really? You were right; there’s no point in just sending you back to prison, and I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of killing you. But after everything you put me through, after everything you put my husband through, you really think I’m going to lose sleep over this?” She indicated her own body with a sweep of her hands. “You mutilate me and think I’m going to hesitate to return the favor?”

“You… you wouldn’t…” he said, but his voice lacked the brimming confidence it had held before.

“All your limbs,” she promised. “It’s not even your arms and legs I really care about, Cyrus. They’re just collateral damage. It’s what swinging between your legs that I’m after.” Her hand reached out and touched the man’s frozen crotch. “You’re never going to hurt anyone with this again, and you’re never going to pleasure yourself with this again. So, no, you’re not going to be masturbating to me in your cell, but I’m still going to be on your mind often. Every time you use your catheter, or your balls ache for release, or you hear someone laughing about the bedridden eunuch who used to be somebody… “ She patted his bald, scarred head. “You’ll think of Frost.”

Backdraft’s composure wavered, and then broke. “Don’t do this to me, Fela!” he demanded angrily. “Don’t you fucking dare…!” His tone became more wheedling. “Please! I-I’m sorry, okay! That’s what you want, right? An apology! I apologize! I, I’ll never bother you again, I swear! I’ll just go back to prison and, and, you’ll never see me again! You have to… you can’t do this to me, dammit!”

The super clucked her tongue. “What’s wrong, Cyrus? Not used to someone being cruel to you no matter how you beg and plead? Can’t imagine what that might feel like.” She stretched, and began removing the rings from her piercings. “You should be fully numb now, right? I hope you enjoyed the cold while it lasted.”

The frozen man was openly crying now. “Pleeeeease,” he blubbered. “I didn’t… I… please!”

Frost held up the ring that had been on her clit, the one with the heart that read MAKE ME SQUEAL. “I’m going to take the girl to the hospital, but here’s a little parting gift.” Backdraft cried out as she drove the ring through his broken nose, leaving the heart to dangle at his front lip. “Some jewelry to keep you company. I don’t condone prison violence, by the way. I just think it’s cute on you.”

Backdraft was trying to say something, but he was sobbing too much for Perry to make out any words. Frost seemed to understand him though, because she laughed. “Cyrus, Cyrus…” she said lightly. “I’m just joking, you big baby. I’m not going to castrate you. Yet.” She leaned in close to him, and her voice grew more serious. “From now on, you’re going to be on your best behavior. Polite with all the guards, no quarrels with the other inmates, a model and exemplary prisoner. If I hear about you so much as cutting in line in the prison cafeteria, I’m going to pay you a visit and do it all for real. And Cyrus…”

She wrapped her hand around his index finger and tugged sharply. There was a loud snap, and she held the severed digit up to the man’s face to let him see it. “I’m sparing you because I’d like to think I’m a better person than that, and I don’t want to compromise who I am for the sake of scum like you. But if you make me find you and finish what I started here, I won’t hesitate, and I will enjoy it. Do you understand?” He blubbered something. “Nod if you understand, Cyrus.” He nodded quickly. “Good.”

The white haired woman casually tossed Backdraft’s index finger away. “Keep that jewelry too, while you’re at it. Another souvenir from your ‘nice little vacation’. And now I really do need to be getting that girl some medical attention.” She looked at the camera for the first time and waved. “Sorry, folks. The Frosty show has been canceled.” A line of ice streaked towards the camera, and then the feed vanished, leaving Perry staring at a black screen.


	13. Issue #12 - A Single Starfish

Lira came back to reality slowly, and with great reluctance. Reality sucked right now. Everything ached, a lot, and her body felt as heavy as lead. She’d already woken up a bunch of times, always in the same place: a white room that had to be a hospital, lying in bed connected to a bunch of noisy machines. Every episode had lasted only a few seconds before she’d let herself drift back to sleep, seeking the warm, painless oblivion. Only a few seconds, but long enough to see that there was someone sitting by the side of the bed. Sometimes it was Fela there, or a bearded man she didn’t recognize, or both, but she was never alone.

Eventually the waking world could no longer be ignored, and her eyes fluttered open. She still felt awful, but it was only so bad that she wanted to scream and cry. “Am I… that interesting… to watch?” she croaked.

Fela gave her a gentle smile. The superhero was alone this time, wearing the same hospital gown Lira had always seen her in. “I’d be lying if I said you weren’t rather adorable,” the white haired woman told her. “How are you feeling?”

“Like… a bulldozer… and an elephant… had a fight to… see who could smash me flatter…” Lira groaned. “Aren’t they supposed to, like… pump me full of painkillers for stuff like this?”

“They did,” Fela said, sounding regretful. “But even with the maximum dosage, your system burned through it in minutes, and they said they didn’t know enough about your enhanced metabolism to know if it was safe to exceed that.”

Stupid power. “Regeneration… is overrated,” Lira said, and cleared her throat. It still felt like it was full of razor blades, but the more she talked, the easier it became.

“I wouldn’t be too upset about having it if I were you,” Fela told her, the cheer returning to her tone. “When the doctors first looked at you five days ago, their most optimistic prognosis was that you’d have to spend the next several years in physical therapy. The most likely was that you’d be dead before the end of the day.”

“And now?”

“Now they’re expecting to discharge you by the end of the week.”

“Alright,” Lira admitted. “It’s not an entirely useless power.” The thought of being discharged sparked other thoughts. “Am I… I mean, when I get out of here, right… are you going to arrest me?”

Fela laughed. “No child, no one’s going to arrest you.”

“I robbed a bunch of places and stuff,” the blonde girl said defensively. “And, like, got into a fight with you.”

“You did,” Fela agreed, “but I already talked to some people, and they all agreed that given what you went through after, and the fact that you not only saved my life, but helped stop a dangerous criminal, some allowances could be made.” She picked up some official looking paperwork next to the bed and handed them over. “In lieu of jail time, or having any incidents on your permanent record, you will report to a parole officer every day for the next six months, and perform at least forty hours of community service a week.”

“Oh. That’s… not bad, I guess.” Lira tried to read the papers, then gave up and skimmed them instead. “Wait, is this some kind of joke?” She jabbed a finger at one of them, where there was a spot for her to sign. The name printed below it read “Starfish”.

Fela’s smile was apologetic, but Lira could see the mirth behind her eyes. “None of us actually knew your given name, and well, the public at large seems to have decided that as your alias.”

“But why would…” Lira’s voice trailed off, and she felt her cheeks flush. “Because I told everybody I was a starfish.”

“Very emphatically,” Fela said, and there was no longer anything at all apologetic about the smile. “Look on the bright side: they could have decided that your name was Fucking Starfish.” Lira’s cheeks flushed harder. “If we knew your real name,” Fela added delicately, “I could ask them to reprint the paperwork.”

“Lira,” said the blonde girl. “Lira Lombardi.”

“It’s very nice to finally meet you, Lira,” Fela said warmly, and offered her hand. Lira took it. “I’m Fela Kaminski.”

“The man who was here sometimes, was he…?”

“My husband Bruno,” Fela confirmed. “He went home to get some sleep less than an hour ago, after being here for the last eighteen. He’s going to be kicking himself for not being here when you woke up.”

“Why?” Lira asked, confused. “I’ve never even met him.”

“Well, it’s a funny thing,” Fela said, amused. “You go saving someone’s life, and all the people who love them tend to take a liking to you. One of the mysteries of the human condition.”

Lira blushed again. “But I’m, like…” The warm fuzzy feeling that had been growing inside her vanished, and she looked down. “I’m the whole reason that everything happened to you in the first place. First I got you caught because I ran away instead of helping you fight, and then you started making those videos for my sake, and then even after Backdraft let me go, I could have gone to the police or told somebody, and I didn’t, so you were there for months. He should hate me, and… and you should hate me too.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I didn’t even beat Backdraft in the end. I’m just a stupid, worthless-”

Fela laid a hand on her side. “Stop,” she said, kind but firm. “I don’t like hearing the people that I care about get insulted, especially when they’re doing it to themselves. Nobody blames you Lira, not for any of it. Back in Serafini’s penthouse, I didn’t help you out of the ice because I was expecting you to fight anyone for me. I did it so that you could do exactly what you did: help your friends run away to safety. That was my fight, not yours. And when I made those videos…” she hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “Lira, neither of us are to blame for anything that Cyrus did to us, but this… do you know how I survived three months of that man with my sanity intact?”

Lira shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. “I survived because of you, Lira. In the beginning, it was knowing that every time he hurt me instead of you, it was almost like I was able to protect you a little. It made me feel like myself, and not the mindless toy he wanted me to be. And after you left, every one of those videos, as awful as they were, reminded me that my being there had helped somebody. I clung to that fact the whole way through, and used it as a lifeline every time he tried to break me.”

“But… but I left you there for so long…”

“There’s no shame in being scared, or in acting out of self preservation. You and I are one of the few people in the world who can fully appreciate how terrifying Cyrus was. Even if you had never come back, I wouldn’t have blamed you for trying to protect yourself from him. And you did come back, Lira. You could have walked away, but you chose to risk your life to protect someone else.”

“I also did it so I could kick his ass…” Lira mumbled, and Fela laughed out loud.

“There’s nothing wrong with that either. You kicked it good, too. If you hadn’t worn him out so much, I never would have been able to hold out against him long enough to set that trap. It was a team effort, and I meant what I said back there: you were incredible.”

Lira sniffed and wiped some of her tears away with one hand. She was silent for a while after that, her head full of conflicting emotions. Fela seemed to sense her distress, because she didn’t push or prod. She just sat there with her, hand still on her side. It felt good. Eventually the woman spoke softly. “There’s something that I’ve been wondering about what you did, actually. How did you get that collar off of me? At the time, I thought you’d found the key, but you didn’t, did you? When I went to use it on Backdraft, I found the entire collar snapped in half; I was lucky that he still had yours around.”

“I dunno, I didn’t do anything special,” Lira said. “Just broke it before the animite could affect me. Super strength, y’know?”

Fela frowned, and looked like she was going to say something, but then shook her head, her expression relaxing. “Right, right. That explains it.”

“Can I…” The blonde girl swallowed. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“I used to think that there were no such thing as heroes. But then I met you and… you told me before that you didn’t think of yourself as a hero, and I still don’t understand why. If anyone in the world deserves the title, it’s… it’s you.”

Fela took a deep breath. “That’s… hmm.” She looked around. “How are you feeling right now, physically speaking?”

“Not as bad as when I woke up,” Lira told her. “Only like Wile E Coyote after he falls off the cliff.”

“Think you’re well enough for a field trip to the roof?” Fela asked, her eyes sparkling.

Despite all her aches and pains, Lira couldn’t help a smile. “I mean, I know I’m well enough that nobody here could stop me…”

**********

“I don’t ask this very often,” Lira said a short while later, “but, um, are you sure this is safe?”

“As houses,” Fela said cheerfully. “Just don’t look down.”

It was hard not to look down. When they’d reached the roof, the super had complained that there was too much light pollution from the city. Her solution was to raise the two of them higher. A lot higher. Lira wasn’t the best judge of distance, but she figured the pillar of ice that they were standing on had to be hundreds and hundreds of feet tall by now, making the hospital roof below them look tiny. It would’ve been different if the pillar they stood on was wider, or had guard rails or something, but it was barely big enough to hold the both of them and had nothing preventing them from falling alllllll the way down. Oh, and it was pitch black up here because the sun had set two hours ago, so she could barely even see the edges of their tiny platform. She reminded herself that she could fly if she had to. Probably.

Lira tore her eyes away from the dizzying sight and looked out across the horizon… and was so amazed that she nearly fell before Frost grabbed hold of her. She still remembered the captivating view from Serafini’s penthouse, and how all of Chicago had opened up before her eyes. This was even more magnificent. The entire city was blanketed in a constantly shifting, multicolored array of lights, while the stars that were all but invisible from below shone clear and bright against the night sky. She spun around slowly, all of her fear forgotten, taking in the dazzling tapestry from every direction. The cool night air felt wonderful, and she had the irrational urge to fly after all, and discover what it was like to experience this with nothing but sky beneath her feet.

After letting her soak in the view for a few minutes, Fela tapped her shoulder and pointed up. “Do you know what that constellation is called?”

Lira followed her finger. “The Big Dipper, right?” She couldn’t have named five different constellations if her life depended on it, but that one was easy at least.

“Right!” Fela said. “So what is it?”

“…A collection of stars?” Lira said hesitantly.

“Sure, but what is it?” When she saw Lira’s confusion, she changed her tactic and pointed to a different part of the sky. “There’s a bunch of of stars over there too, but they’re not a constellation. Neither are those, or those. So what makes those seven stars different? What do they have that makes them the Big Dipper?”

Lira opened her mouth on reflex to say that she had no idea, but then closed it and considered the question instead. “It’s… there’s nothing,” she said finally. “People just decided that those particular stars looked like a weird spoon thing, so they called it a constellation.”

“Exactly!” Fela said happily. “And with that, let’s go back to the earlier question: what’s a constellation?”

This time Lira thought she understood. “It’s a thing that’s only in our heads,” she said slowly, her pace increasing as she became more sure of her answer. “It can’t exist without the stars, but it’s not made out of them, it’s just what we see when we look at them.” She thought some more. “And that’s a hero, isn’t it?”

Even in the dark, she could see the white haired woman’s proud smile. It made Lira feel awkward and uncomfortable and really, really good. “I knew you were a smart cookie,” Fela said. “You could scour the universe for something called a constellation, and you’d find nothing but plain old stars. And you could search the entire Earth for something called a hero, and come up empty-handed there too. Nobody is a hero, or a villain for that matter. We’re all just people living our lives. It’s only when you take a step back…” she lifted both of her hands and framed the constellation in them, “that you can find what you’re looking for.”

She tapped her chest. “I’m not Frost. I’m just Fela Kaminski, a woman who can do a few neat tricks with ice and likes standing up to bullies. I like to think I do the right thing more often than not, but I make plenty of mistakes too. There are times when I’m stupid, or selfish, or just plain wrong. I’m human. Frost isn’t. She’s a concept, an idealized force for good that some people see when they look at me.”

“Isn’t that kinda a depressing way to think of it, though?” Lira asked. “That the heroes people love don’t really exist? That it’s all just their own imaginations?”

Fela shook her head. “No, it’s the opposite. I couldn’t be Frost, no matter how hard I try. Nobody can. But because of what I do, she gets to exist. She gets to give people hope and happiness, and inspire good in others. The world is a better place because she’s in it. Heroes are real, Lira, as real as you and me. They just exist in our hearts and minds instead of in the flesh.”

She tapped Lira’s chest next. “You’re Lira Lombardi. You’re a good kid who’s made some mistakes and hasn’t always done the right thing. And you’re not a hero. But when you came down through that roof, when I realized that I wasn’t alone, that I might not die in that hell after all… that I might get to see my husband again, and feel the sun on my face, and finally get to stop feeling hurt and defiled every second of every day…” Fela’s voice had grown choked. “A hero came to rescue me that day, Lira. And she came because of you.”

Lira was grateful for the dark to hide her blushing face, and the night air to cool it. It took a couple minutes before she felt able to speak. “Is there a way I could…” she asked, fidgeting. “I mean, I know I’m not perfect, I’m… I’m a lot farther away from being a hero than you are to being Frost, but… maybe, if it’s not too much trouble… would you be willing to, y’know… teach me? To do hero stuff?”

“Why?” Fela asked. Her tone was neutral, betraying no reaction to Lira’s request.

The blonde girl gulped, feeling even more anxious now. She’d really been hoping Frost would just say yes or no and that could be the end of it, one way or another. “I… I told you before about what I thought of the world. That it’s a place where the strong get to push around the weak, and the only person you can rely on is yourself.”

“I remember,” Fela said calmly.

“I still think it’s true,” Lira continued. “I think life is cruel and unfair, and if you’re not one of the people clawing your way to the top of the mountain, you’re one of the people buried beneath it.”

“And that’s why you want me to teach you?” the white haired woman asked. “So that you can get strong enough to bully everyone else?”

“No,” Lira said, shaking her head. “That’s the kind of world we live in, but who says it always has to be that way? I want to live in a better world, where everyone can be happy and nobody gets pushed around. And I don’t just want to stand around wishing that the world was like that. I want to make the world like that. I know I’m just one person, and I know I can’t do it all by myself, but I want to try. I’d rather spend my whole life trying and failing, than just giving up and never trying at all. I want to try and save every last starfish.

“And I know that I still have to do the community service stuff,” she added quickly. “And the parole stuff, and all that. But in six months, when that’s over with, could I see you again?”

“No,” said Fela gently. “We’re not going to do that.”

“Oh.” Lira felt like an idiot. Of course someone like Fela wouldn’t want to waste time on someone like her. “Right. Sorry, I, I shouldn’t have even asked. It was a stupid idea anyway. Just forget I-”

“Shhhh,” the white haired woman said, putting a finger to her lips. “I’m saying no because I’m not going to wait six months. I’ll begin teaching you tomorrow morning.”

Lira’s eyes lit up. “You’re sure my parole officer would be okay with that?” She had no idea how she was going to balance forty hours of community service a week with her training, but she’d make it work.

Fela grinned. “Lira, do you know who your parole officer is?”

The blonde girl shrugged uncertainly. “No...”

Fela’s grin widened. “It just so happens that one of Chicago’s most famous superheroes just came back on duty after an extended absence, and she volunteered herself for the position.”

“Wait…” Lira said. “So, the community service…”

“I think training to be a superhero more than qualifies as a service to the community, don’t you?” Fela asked sweetly.

“But- If you were already gonna do it, why didn’t you just say so?!” Lira demanded, embarrassed. “Instead of making me ask and everything!”

“Because I needed it to be your idea, child,” Fela told her. “And I needed to know why you wanted it. Being a superhero is a dangerous job, both for the people who take it and those around them. If I’d told you from the start that I was hoping to teach you, then you might have just gone along out of a sense of obligation, not because it was what you truly wanted to do. And if you wanted power for the wrong reasons, then the cruelest thing I could possibly do is give it to you.”

“But you’re really going to teach me now, right?” Lira asked, still not willing to believe it. “Really really?”

The white haired woman nodded. “Really really really.” She hesitated. “I… don’t know what kind of accommodations you have waiting for you when you get out…”

Lira thought back to the old basement apartment. Even if it was still unoccupied, she didn’t want to set foot in there ever again. “None at all.”

“Well, I can arrange for you to be put up at a nearby hotel then,” Fela said. “The best suite they have, free of charge.” She hesitated again. “Or… if you wanted… Bruno and I have a guest room…” She raised her hands quickly. “But it’s small and our house is old and creaky, and I’m well aware that a young woman your age doesn’t want to be stuck living somewhere with a couple old fogies when she could have a much nicer place all to her-” She cut off as Lira embraced her, almost knocking them both off the pillar in the process.

“I can come stay with you?” the girl asked excitedly, her face buried in Fela’s chest. “You’d want me to come stay with you?”

Fela stroked her hair. “We would love to have you stay with us, Lira.”

The two of them stayed like that for a long time. “I should get you back to bed,” Fela said eventually. “It’s late, and you’re still recovering. You need to rest.”

“Alright,” Lira said reluctantly. “Just let me take one more look before we go back down.” She gazed up at the beautiful night sky, and the countless stars within, familiarity making the sight no less mesmerizing. It was a sky full of possibilities, hiding a million billion constellations just waiting to be found.

She raised a hand up to the inky blackness, and lights kindled at the end of each fingertip, five more brilliant pinpoints to join all the others. “I never came up with a name for this stuff,” she told Fela, still looking straight up. “It was always just power, you know? Didn’t matter what it was called, just that it did what I wanted. I guess I always felt deep down like, if I gave it a name, then I was admitting it was something important. Something that deserved to be put to good use, not just to make my life easier.”

Lira looked back at Fela and grinned. “What do you think of calling it starlight?”

**********

Day one hundred and thirty eight.

Grace whined softly as Master Serafini penetrated her from behind. It hurt in so many places and for so many different reasons. Her pussy hurt because it was still swollen and sore from her wakeup fuck two hours ago, and his thick cock forcing her open made it ache a thousand times worse. Her knees and forearms hurt because the movement scraped them back and forth across the rough basement floor where she knelt. Her ass cheeks hurt because they were still red and bruised from her whipping the night before, and her master's coarse pubic hair was like sandpaper as it rubbed against them. Her breasts hurt because of the swinging weights attached to her nipple rings. Her scalp hurt because he'd grabbed the long red tresses like reins, and was yanking them so hard that only experience told her that he wasn't about to rip them off of her head.

"That's it, sexy," Master Serafini encouraged, his hips moving with increasing speed as every thrust made her swollen fucktunnel widen a little more. She’d never been interested in men, and even if she had, someone like him never would have appealed to her: a pudgy man nearly twice her weight and more than twice her age, with greasy black hair and a constant shit-eating grin. "Keep quiet. Make Daddy work for it." There was nothing he liked more than to hear her screams, and she'd have screamed until her voice gave out if it meant receiving mercy from him, but that would only make him mad. He wanted her cries to be genuine and involuntary, ripped unwillingly from out her lungs by sheer agony. Screaming too soon, before he'd "earned" them by hurting her enough, was grounds for punishment.

There was no hope that her screams would be heard by anyone who could help. They were in the basement of one of Master Serafini’s many homes, which was designed with the same sort of aesthetic to the hidden room they’d found in his penthouse. She’d been upstairs a handful of times to find the sprawling building full of armed security guards, all of whom couldn’t seem to care less about seeing a naked girl crawling behind their employer. Even if she somehow managed to escape the basement, and get out of the mansion, and make it across the perfectly maintained multi-acre lawn where there was no place to hide, the entire property was walled off with only a single heavily manned security checkpoint to get in or out.

Once Master Serafini’s fat prick had loosened her up to his satisfaction, the real torture began. "What am I in the mood for this time?" he wondered out loud. "Fire? Fire's always good, but we do that one a lot, don't we? We haven't done stabbing in a while, or electricity. And there's always drowning..." Grace tried to make no reaction, but she couldn't help a quiet whimper at the last suggestion, and his cock twitched in pleasure at the reaction. "Drowning it is, then. Take a deep breath, sexy!" As though that would help.

Grace felt herself falling into warm liquid. It wasn't real - she was still right where she was, kneeling on the floor, soaked only in sweat - but it felt real. She felt her limbs thrashing, arms and legs striking the walls of the small tank she'd been dumped into. Except they weren't actually her limbs, which remained meekly in place while her owner mounted her. What she was feeling were the limbs of the poor girl who had really been there.

Empathic sensation was the technical term for it. There were many variations of it in the world, and the kind Master Serafini's aberration produced wasn't the most powerful she'd ever heard of, but Grace would be surprised if there was anyone more sadistic in their use of it. Once he'd touched someone, he could record what they were feeling for a time, and then pass that on to someone else whenever he wanted. He gloated occasionally about how it had helped make him billions through careful use for spying. All he had to do was shake a rival's hand or pat a government official on the back, and then see what secrets turned up from riding in their heads.

There were medical tests to identify Aberrants, but none that could identify the nature of someone’s aberration. Everyone was required to register their power and prove its usage in a controlled environment, but unless someone intended to use it openly, like a super would, there was nothing stopping them from lying about the full extent of what they could do. As far as the world knew, Master Serafini was just a step above an Ant, capable of sharing some limited sensory information. Even his staff didn’t seem to know what he could do, probably because he didn’t trust them to keep quiet. Only Grace and his other victims knew of his ability to record experiences, and how powerful he could make them.

The drowning girl, who would have been one of his captives months or years ago, was trying to swim up to the surface so she could breathe, but Master Serafini's hand pressed down on her head, preventing her from rising. His hand was still perfectly dry, and the air she was so desperate to reach still ruffled her hair. It didn't take long for her lungs to start burning, and even as Grace's own chest heaved, drawing in great useless breaths of air, she felt that same burning.

The tank wasn't filled with water. It was a far more slimy, viscous substance that quickly clung to her skin and gummed her eyes shut. Grace didn't know if the girl had ever discovered that she was drowning in horse semen, but Master Serafini had delighted in sharing that detail, just as he happily informed her that it had cost him more money to fill that tank than it had to purchase the girl from the human trafficking ring that had first picked her up.

Grace felt the girl's consciousness begin to fade as her lungs gave out. She wondered if the girl had felt relief to be slipping into unconsciousness or death, either of which would have offered a respite from Master Serafini. She certainly would have, if it had been her in that tank. But unlike the nameless girl, Grace already knew what was going to happen next. Bare seconds before she would have passed out, her owner hauled her up out of the tank by her hair, just high enough to let her lips break the surface and pant for breath. She received three breaths, no more, no less, and then Master Serafini shoved her head back down. Caught by surprise, she swallowed horse cum and began to choke on it, her entire body spasming.

"That's the spirit, sexy," Master Serafini said happily as Grace's body began to involuntarily do the same, making her collapse into a heap. "Taste that warm gooey horse jizz. Feel it slide down that tight throat." She did, no matter how hard she tried not to think about it. The drowning girl had had the blessings of panic and adrenaline on her side. Even if she'd registered the taste of the thick white slime, all of her attention must have been on her lungs. Grace had no such protection. The first few times she'd experienced this, yes, but it was familiar enough by now that all the more subtle sensations stood out. She could feel the girl's broken ring toe, which sent bolts of pain up her entire leg every time her foot had scrabbled at the walls. She could feel the itchy, hot rope burns on her wrists that she must have earned from trying helplessly to escape some past torment. Grace was even aware of the gnawing hunger in the girl's empty belly, which so perfectly mirrored her own.

As soon as the girl's thrashing began to subside, she was hauled up again, where she immediately started hacking up the contents of her lungs. She wasn't nearly done before she was shoved back under, but this time she was prepared enough to keep her mouth shut. The interminable cycle began in earnest: drowned in the water for sixty seconds, let up for a single breath, drowned again. Over and over.

The girl had probably been only half conscious by the fifth or sixth time. The experience would have been so overwhelming that she would've barely even known when she was drowning or breathing, oxygen deprivation blending everything together into a single endless nightmare. Grace was bitterly jealous. Her own brain was still receiving plenty of oxygen, not sparing her from a single moment of torture. And the aches and pains of her real body still demanded attention as well. The redhead was all too aware of Master Serafini's fat cock stretching out her insides, pummeling her sore quim with savage thrusts as the man delighted in her agony.

By the time the girl was being held under for the tenth time, his dick was pulsing and shooting inside Grace, painting the walls of her pussy with his jizz. She'd never held anything but disgust at the thought of the ugly, fleshy members that men had, and the foul sticky juice they spat out. Experience had only deepened her loathing. The torture was nowhere near over - the girl was going to be drowned ninety three times in total before Master Serafini would grow bored of the game - so her obese owner pulled his cock out and presented it to Grace. She obediently began coaxing him back to life with her tongue, even as her body insisted that she was going to die if she didn’t get more air now now now.

Grace idly wondered how many different girls there actually were in his recorded torture sessions, how much overlap existed. Was the drowning girl the same one whose fingers had been smashed one by one with a hammer? Or the one who'd been locked overnight in a tiny crate filled with fire ants? It was difficult to tell. She was pretty sure that more than one of her own experiences had already been saved for tormenting whatever poor girls he picked up after her. The time he'd nailed her to the wall by her hands and feet, then spent hours punishing her backside with the riding crop, was almost certainly one of them. So was the night he'd used her as a garbage can; she'd knelt next to him in the kitchen, driven crazy by the mouthwatering scents of the food he was preparing, while he fed her discarded egg shells and plastic wrappers and rotten bits of vegetables. She'd cried with sincere gratitude when he offered afterward to let her lick his dirty plate clean, until he'd upended an entire bottle of hot sauce over it, and made her keep going until she'd lapped up every drop.

One hundred and thirty eight days of this hell, each crueler than anything her worst nightmares had ever produced. Sometimes she wondered if it actually was hell, if those men who'd first assaulted her back in the apartment really had fucked her to death like they'd joked about. Grace wished it were true. The idea that she was being tortured by a demon or whatever as divine punishment for her sins was kinder than the reality, that all of her suffering served no greater purpose than to help a fat old man get his rocks off.

The sole bit of mercy to her situation, the one that rent her heart with guilt every time she thought about it, was that she'd ended up with Master Serafini instead of Backdraft. She often wondered if Lira had already been tortured to death by that insane monster. For her friend's sake, she hoped so. It was the closest either of them would ever get to making the pain stop.

Master Serafini was growing eager to make her start screaming. She recognized the way he thrust so sharply into her, as though he was imagining impaling her on his prick, as he worked towards shooting his third load of the session into her pussy. That was why she hated the drowning recording more than any of the others: as horrific as it was, it was the kind of abuse that made her choke and gasp and thrash around, not scream. In other words, it was only foreplay.

The girl in the tank was drowning for the eighty second time when Grace felt a new sensation, that of sharp, cold metal being dragged over her chest. She recognized it at once, and tears began streaming from her eyes. Master Serafini’s chuckle told her that he’d noticed. The metal was wrapped tightly around her tits, its points digging into the skin in a dozen different places. Not her actual skin, of course; the skin of whatever miserable soul had gone through this in real life. Once it was cruelly binding her chest, it was wrapped around the rest of her body, from her armpits to to the back of her knees to between her legs, no sensitive spot from the neck down spared. She’d seen pictures of women in shibari bondage before, and always thought it looked painful and uncomfortable. The experience was a million times worse when the rope was replaced with barbed wire.

By drowning number eighty four, her entire body was bound by the merciless wire. She was already begging internally for release, but it was too soon. This was where her endurance had run out the last time, and it was why the soles of her feet were so shredded that she wouldn’t be able to walk out of here if he opened all the doors and bid her goodbye. So Grace clamped her lips shut, ignoring how her lungs begged her to do exactly the opposite, and endured the vertigo that came when the bound girl was hoisted up and hung upside down from something on the ceiling. Gravity immediately made everything hurt so much more, and Grace had to bite her own tongue to stop from howling.

“That’s a good girl,” Master Serafini cooed, one hand letting go of her hair to run along her curves. “So quiet for Daddy. Trying so hard not to let him hear her. Let’s play a game, sexy. Keep that up for just thirty more seconds, and I’ll let you go free, okay? Just be the bravest little fucktoy for a little while longer, and this can all be over, I promise.” Grace didn’t believe him, but she had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so she redoubled her efforts. Every second seemed to tick by impossibly slowly as her body insisted that the barbed wire bondage was about to tear her into small chunks. She’d never made it so far into this particular recording before, and for once she was as blind to what was coming as the original victim. She shut her eyes and tried to focus on everything else. She was being raped. She was suffocating. She was hurting and burning and exhausted and-

An imaginary baseball bat slammed into her chest hard enough to crack her ribs, and all thoughts of being quiet fled. Grace howled as the blow pushed her violently away, driving barbs deeper into her skin. As she swung forward, the bat met her again, this time knocking the wind out of her at it bruised her flat stomach. The third hit broke her nose and made her taste blood. Master Serfini was laughing happily as she gave in to the pain and screamed repeatedly long before the thirty second mark. His cock felt longer and fatter than ever as it eagerly fucked her squirming body, her agony and terror pleasing him at least as much as the involuntary clenching of her cunt around him.

As the bat struck her a fourth time, the drowning girl was going through the final cycle. Master Serafini had let her drown for real that ninety third time, and Grace had no idea if he’d revived her after or let her die. Either way, even as the redhead’s body felt like it was being smashed and torn apart in equal measure, her desperate lungs were growing panicked. The drowning girl’s reflexes finally took over and made her open her mouth for air, swallowing another great mouthful of horse sperm instead. Grace felt it fill her mouth and stick in her throat as she violently convulsed in response. The redhead was a thrashing, shuddering, half-mad mess as Master Serafini groaned behind her and began defiling her insides with more of his cum.

The sensation of drowning, and the taste of horse cum in her mouth and feel of it coating her body vanished. The barbed wire, and the sensation of being upside down, and the bat vanished. She was just a girl kneeling on all fours again, panting and sobbing while her owner finished spurting inside her. “That was beautiful, baby,” he told her as the last drops came out. “You were like a living work of art.” She felt hollowed out and numb as he moved to her front and let her start tongue bathing his soft cock. “I think I’ll head upstairs and have some lunch once you’re done slurping yours off of me, then I’ll come back down for some more fun. That sound good?”

Another sob came out of Grace. That was the worst part of this entire nightmare. What she’d just gone through hadn’t been a punishment for disobedience, or some extra brutal session where he’d treated her worse than usual. There wasn’t anything special about it at all. It was just the morning of her one hundred and thirty eighth day of slavery, nothing more. The rest of the day would be just as bad, and all she’d have to look forward to was day one hundred and thirty nine, and then day one hundred and forty, and on and on until the day she died. The only hope she had left was that that day would arrive soon.

The intercom on the wall buzzed. Master Serafini heaved a sigh, then jabbed the button with one finger. “What is it?” he asked, the irritation clear in his voice. Grace shuddered slightly; he always got angry when his time with her was interrupted, and then he took it out on her.

“This is the front gate, sir,” said a staticky male voice. “Security systems have flagged some law enforcement on approach, about five minutes out. Two supers and some uniformed officers.”

An ugly smirk appeared on her owner’s face. “Let me guess: one of them is the multi talented Frosty?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn you, Cyrus,” Master Serafini muttered quietly, his finger off the intercom. “I hired you to clean up messes, not make new ones.” He pressed the button again and smoke at a more normal volume. “When Chicago’s favorite adult actress reaches the gate, inform her that she is more than welcome to tour my vacation home. After all, I have nothing to hide, and I am always happy to cooperate with our hardworking boys and girls in blue.” Grace hadn’t been able to stop herself from feeling a small bit of hope upon hearing that there were superheroes on the way, but the reminder of the reality of her situation crushed the rare emotion down quickly. Her owner was already prepared for a situation like this, and she knew what he was probably going to do with her while they were here.

“Yes, sir.”

The pudgy man hit a different button. “Get Volker and Walsh down here immediately.” He turned back to the redhead. “And let’s get you set up, darling,” he said as he stood her up. “Once we get your jammies on, you can relax snug as a bug in your little bed while Daddy entertains his visitors.” Grace let out a small whimper as her fear was confirmed.

Nothing in the world was worse than being raped by Master Serafini and his men, but her “bed” and “pajamas” were a close second. The so-called pajamas were a skintight leather outfit that Grace began quickly struggling into. Each piece was a tighter fit than the smallest piece of clothing that she’d ever worn in her twenty years of normal life, but she squirmed into them quickly. She’d had plenty of practice and incentive; during the first few weeks of her captivity, taking longer than a minute to get everything on meant being punished in the morning. She’d dislocated fingers and toes more than once trying to cram them too fast into the stiff, unforgiving leather.

Every piece was designed to be awful. First there were the shorts that barely went past her genitals. The crotch had a thick rubber dildo attached to the inside that she had to put into herself, but not before setting up the catheter. Next were the boots that went up to her knees and their ridiculously high heels, making her stand on tiptoes once she had them on. Sometimes her owner had her walk around the house with them, laughing at the way she teetered slowly from step to step. The real pain started with the bra, the inside of which was lined with tiny dull spikes that dug viciously into her flesh without breaking the skin. Both pads had a tiny hole in the middle for just the tips of her pierced nipples to protrude from.

After that came the collar, and the cruel game she was forced to play every time she wore it. Unlike everything else, it could be adjusted, going anywhere from so loose that it dangled off her collarbones to so tight that she couldn’t breathe. What made it so terrible was that it was up to Grace how tight to make it, to choose how difficult she wanted breathing to be while she was put away. Make it looser than he wanted, and Master Serafini would tighten it himself, leaving her only the smallest trickle of air to survive on. Make it tighter than he’d had in mind, and he would just laugh and leave her to suffer by her own hand. She tightened it a little at a time, the same familiar fears running through her head. Would this be enough? Would this? It pressed hard enough against her throat that swallowing was difficult, but would he be happy with just that? As usual, she tightened it until it was so horribly uncomfortable that she wanted to scream, and then tightened it a little more, choosing the safe approach over risking Master Serafini’s disapproval.

And then there was the mask that covered her entire head. The o-ring at the front would keep her mouth held obscenely wide, while the nose plugs sealed up her nostrils. There were covers to block her sight and plugs for her hearing, but Grace left those alone. Master Serafini liked to apply those himself after bidding her good night, often chortling about how he was both the very first and last thing she saw and heard every day. Once they were in, she’d be in a dark, silent hell until he came back for her. Sometimes he was away for many hours at a time, occasionally entire days, which was why the bondage gear had the catheter installed. A tube ran from the catheter to her nose plugs: once she’d gone on long enough to lose control of her bladder, her own urine would slowly travel along the tube to be spurted into her nose without warning some time later, making her choke and cough on the foul liquid.

Last but not least came the gloves that went up to her elbows. They had to be saved for last because they required her to ball her hands up into fists, leaving her more helpless than ever. She couldn’t tighten them herself, so she had to let Master Serafini do it, docilely holding out her arms for him. After that, there were laces to connect her wrists to the shorts, leaving her arms pinned to her sides. Once she was barely able to move or breathe, she could be put in “bed” for the true torture to begin.

The bed was a closet-like alcove in one wall. The door resembled the wall around it so perfectly that it couldn’t be seen while closed unless you knew where to look. On the inside of it, attached to a side wall, was a large hollow dildo open at the end, basically an obscenely shaped tube. With her owner’s guidance leading the way, she’d use the hole in the back of her shorts to sit down on the dildo, letting it anally penetrate her. It was made of a smooth, slick material that was all too easy to get into herself, and positioned such that she would hang in midair, her downward pointed toes just barely brushing the floor. From there, she’d lean her upper body forward until her mouth found the similar hollow dildo sticking out from the opposite wall. It would go all the way down her throat, where it could spit out cum and other nutrients if she needed to be fed. The dildo in her butt was hollow for the same opposite reason, so that she could defecate down it when necessary. Grace would always hold out from doing that as long as she could, knowing that much like the catheter and her nose plugs, the anal and oral dildos were connected within the walls.

The final and worst piece were the two small rings embedded just below the dildo. These would get put into her nipple piercings, and then Grace would immediately have a choice to make. She could do nothing, and let gravity sink her further and further down the slippery dildo in her ass while her weight was put on her nipples, stretching the delicate buds of flesh until it felt like the rings were about to be ripped out. Or she could clench her asshole around the dildo, keeping herself in place with her already sore and overworked anal muscles. Or she could strain her legs and push her toes down to reach the floor, holding herself in an uncomfortable and painful position.

She would do all three in short order, over and over in a humiliating cycle. She would squeeze the anal dildo as tightly as any lover could ever wish for until her guts were so sore that every contraction felt like clenching a hot poker. She would hold herself up on her toes until her legs cramped and her feet screamed and she was certain that she’d never walk properly again. And when she could do neither, she would hang there by her nipples, screaming soundlessly as they were tortured. Without sight or sound or any way to measure time, every minute felt like an hour, and every hour like a year. She’d sobbed and sobbed after the first night in the torture alcove, promising Master Serafini that she would do absolutely anything to avoid going in there again. He’d almost laughed herself sick telling her that the bed wasn’t meant as punishment; it was there so that she would feel properly grateful every time someone showed up to take her out and fuck her. She very nearly did.

Less than two minutes after he’d given the order to put on her pajamas, Grace hung suspended from the one dildo, the other buried down her throat. “This won’t take long, sexy,” Master Serafini assured her, stroking her midriff with one hand. “And once you’ve finished your nap, you’ll be bursting with energy to play more games with Daddy, won’t you?” The redhead nodded around the cock in her throat. Already she’d completely given up on her hope of being found and rescued, and was reduced to hoping that her potential saviors would just take a quick glance around and leave.

Her owner was about to slip on the eye covers and ear plugs when heavy footsteps announced two people descending into the basement. “The usual, sir?” asked a tall, scrawny looking man. Unlike most of the house staff, who wore uniforms and kept their appearances neat, he wore jeans and a stained t-shirt, and had unkempt brown hair that reached his shoulders. His companion was more muscled, had a thatch of red hair, and was as slovenly dressed as him. When leaving on business they had to dress professionally, but within the grounds all supers were allowed a more casual dress code. It was less a mark of respect for them, and more a warning to anyone who might mistake them for a servant and say something they regretted.

Volker was once a low ranking superhero called Smoke, whose power was to manipulate matter to create and control whatever he wanted. He’d never risen very far because his control was too crude to be very effective with anything complex. As a hero, he’d used it exclusively on gaseous creations: dense smokescreens to hide himself, waves of sleeping gas to knock out opponents, and so on. His career had ended four years ago after creating some kind of corrosive gas to win a desperate fight; it had gruesomely killed not only the villain he was battling, but several innocent bystanders. A self-defense plea had kept him out of prison, but his reputation was too tarnished to find legitimate work again. Enter his new employer, who was interested not only in what Volker could do with his ability, but what he was capable of learning.

“Yes,” Master Serafini said. “And this isn’t a drill, Volker. Make sure your work is impeccable.” In response, the air around the two men shimmered, and then they both vanished.

Grace had no idea how long it had taken the man, but Volker had been taught to manipulate light as easily as he did gas. The minor illusions he could create were always easy to spot, but he never used those for anything but party tricks. The true use for his light bending was to bend it around him, rendering himself and others invisible. She could no longer see the two men, but she knew that they were still right where they’d been standing. They would trail after her owner while he was with the supers, making sure nothing happened to him, and waiting for the order to strike if necessary. Grace had caught some of Frost’s fight with Lira a lifetime ago, but she’d seen nothing that suggested the woman could survive a surprise attack. Especially not from a opponent like Walsh.

Walsh didn’t have any kind of alias, because he’d never been active as a superhero or villain. There were plenty of people born with powerful aberrations who chose to ignore them and live normal lives instead, but Walsh wasn’t like them either. He was a mercenary, or more specifically an assassin. If you wanted someone dead and you didn’t care how much collateral damage it took, he was the kind of man you hired. Grace had never heard of anyone, outside of the big names like Baldur or Mammoth, whose aberration had granted them such natural abilities. He was incredibly strong, blindingly fast, and could heal any injury within seconds. His only weakness was that his physical prowess was his only ability; he lacked any extrasensory powers or physics-defying abilities. He was just very, very good at killing people, and he loved his work. And with Smoke around to give him the element of surprise, he was practically invincible.

Grace knew both men more intimately than she ever would have liked. One of the benefits of being a super in Master Serafini’s employ was free use of his pet whenever she wasn’t with him, and Volker and Walsh both took full advantage of it. Walsh could easily go at her for hours, pounding her so hard and fast that his cock felt like a literal jackhammer ruining her insides, not stopping or even slowing down until at least a dozen of his loads painted her insides. Volker couldn’t manage kind of physical abuse or staying power, but she feared him even more. At the end of the day, Walsh just wanted to fuck her; Volker, like her owner, wanted to hurt her. His favorite game was to rip the air from her lungs and rape her while she gasped and convulsed like a dying fish. Sometimes he’d instead bind her hands and then douse her in a cloud of something that made her entire body itch like mad, and fuck her happily while she squirmed and tried uselessly to scratch everywhere. One time he’d claimed that he’d made her ingest a poison that would kill her slowly and painfully if she didn’t make him cum first. She still didn’t know if he’d been bluffing, but she hadn’t taken the chance, fucking him like the wanton, desperate fucktoy her owner was training her to be.

The redhead watched Master Serafini out of the corner of her eye as he hit the intercom again. “When our guests arrive, have them escorted to the mansion I’ll meet them at the front door and we’ll get this farce over with.” When there was no answer, he scowled and jabbed the button again. “Do you copy?”

The voice that came out of the intercom a moment later was that of a young woman’s this time. It was strangely familiar too, but there was too much static for Grace to be sure she wasn’t just imagining it. “Uh… ten four? Is that what I’m supposed to say? Sorry, I clocked your boy on the head a little too hard and he took a nap. I don’t think I did any permanent damage, but hey, it’s my first day on the job, y’know? Everybody makes mistakes. Anyway, figured I might as well grab his radio.”

“Who. The hell. Is this?” Master Serafini growled.

“They’ve been calling me Starfish lately,” said the woman. “Kinda silly, but it’s growing on me. My turn: is Grace alive? Because if she isn’t, you are real fucked.”

The redhead’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of her own name, and she frantically tamped down the surge of hope it elicited. She wasn’t going to be rescued. She was never going to be rescued. The only people who cared about her were dead or worse than dead, and that was just the way things were. It had become so much easier to keep going when she’d finally she accepted her fate months ago. This was nothing but day one hundred and thirty eight of the rest of her life.

Master Serafini didn’t so much as glance at her. She was fairly certain that he didn’t even know that her name was Grace. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe I have any staff employed with that name.”

“Uh huh. Hey, you’re not gonna, like, turn yourself in, right? I’m going to be real disappointed if we came all this way and I don’t get to shove my foot up your ass.”

Grace’s owner cursed before activating the intercom again. “Miss Starfish, I believe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’ve always prided myself on maintaining a positive relationship with the authorities, including you brave men and women who defend us daily. If we can just-” There was a crashing sound from somewhere upstairs.

“Sorrrrrry,” said Starfish cheerfully. “Your windows looked super fancy, so I went through the wall instead. Big fancy crime guy like you has to have plenty of insurance, yeah? Wow, everything here looks so expensive!” There was a series of smaller crashes, both from above and through the intercom. “Whoops, and now it’s all dust. Clumsy me! Who knows how much more shit I might accidentally break while I wait for you to show up and hand Grace over?”

Master Serafini hit a different button. “Security, take care of that little bitch right now. I want everyone on it!” He glanced around. “Not you two. You stay right here.”

“You sure that’s a good idea, sir?” asked a skeptical voice through the intercom. “Pornstar or not , we can’t just attack a superhero without some serious backlash…”

“I’ll smooth things out with the police later. Say they had an accident on the way here or something. God knows the commissioner owes me enough favors, that little piece of shit. Get rid of her, and Frosty too when she shows up. Let everyone know that whoever brings one of them down gets five years pay as a bonus. If you can capture one alive, I’ll triple the bonus, and you’ll get the first ride once she’s collared.”

“Y-yes sir!”

“That should take care of that,” he announced to the empty air. “If they turn out to be trouble, I’ll send you to clean up, but otherwise-” Master Serafini’s voice was cut off by an angry smashing sound, and debris fell from the ceiling.

“God, you’re so fucking basic,” said Starfish as she hopped down into the basement via the hole she’d just created in the ceiling. “I mean, seriously, a basement? Really? You’ve got a bazillion dollars and the best you can think of is ‘what if I put a rape dungeon in the basement’?”

Grace was so stunned to see the woman that she almost forgot to breathe. She was dressed in casual street clothes, and had a small knapsack over one shoulder and her entire body was shining with a soft light and… and it was Lira! Rainbow mohawk and everything! The redhead had resigned herself to the idea that she was never going to see her friend and occasional crush again, at least not in any state that wasn’t horrific. She knew about Backdraft as well as anyone, and what his victims looked like after he got bored of them. But it was Lira, and she was smiling and…!

And her friend suddenly jolted and collapsed face first onto the ground, all the light around her vanishing a moment later.

“Triple bonus, right boss?” came Walsh’s voice. Lira’s body shifted as he nudged her with an invisible foot, and then rolled her over onto her back. “Fuck me but she’s a pretty one. Almost cute enough that I’d pass on the money if I got to keep her instead.”

“Screw that,” said Volker and spat, his spittle visible as it struck the fallen woman’s cheek. “Who cares how pretty a bitch looks? All that matters is if she’s got a tight cunt or not. You could buy yourself a fresh whore every day for years with that kind of money.”

“So you’re saying I gotta sample the goods, huh? No argument here.” Invisible hands spread Lira’s legs wide and unzipped her pants. “You’re a lucky bitch, really. I was a little worried I’d smash your head open like a watermelon. But instead you get to see what it’s like to play with the big boys.”

“Be careful with that one,” Master Serafini said, keeping his distance. “That’s the girl who tried to save Frosty. She was strong enough to make Backdraft sweat for a few minutes.”

“Relax boss,” Walsh said, sliding her pants down. “I watched that video too. She wasn’t bad, but I saw enough to know that I’m stronger and faster.” He chuckled. “That flying looked fun, though. Wouldn’t mind fucking her in midair sometime, after we break her in.”

Grace watched in horror as invisible hands played with Lira’s breasts, mashing and rolling them around. This was her fault. It was all Grace’s fault this was happening, because she’d let herself have hope again. If she could have just stopped feeling and hoping, then this could have just been day one hundred and thirty eight instead of…

Lira’s panties were unceremoniously tugged down. “Looks pretty tight from here,” Walsh commented, “but only one way to find out. Here I come, little fishy, get ready t-” He cut off with a choked gasp.

“If you’re going to go all invisible against a girl,” Lira said calmly, her eyes still closed, her right hand wrapped around something unseen by her crotch, “you probably shouldn’t let her know exactly where your dick is.” Her hand twisted sharply and he screamed. A moment later the rainbow haired girl’s head rocked violently to the side, her cheek slapping against the basement floor, but she was smiling as she opened her eyes. “You call that a punch?”

“Let go of me, you fucking bitch!” Walsh snarled, and Lira’s head rocked to the other side, and then back again. “You fucking bitch! You fuhh! Ahh!”

“I don’t want to rip your cock off,” she told him, a small trickle of blood running down from her lower lip, “but it’s a little hard to know just how bad I’m hurting you when I can’t see you. If I do this “ - her hand twisted further and Walsh made a distressed warbling sound “ - I don’t know if I can keep going and only make you piss blood for the rest of your life, or if I’m going to tear this little pea shooter right off, y’know?”

“Turn it off!” Walsh demanded, his voice choked up. “Turn it off!” He abruptly appeared, crouched over Lira’s body with his cock trapped in her fist.

“Much better,” Lira said. Then she grabbed his shirt with her free hand, and threw Walsh to the side. The man hit the wall hard enough to make a dent and slid down bonelessly. Not seeming to be in any particular distress, the super pulled her pants and underwear back up, then stood. The soft glow that had illuminated her before reappeared. “Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, why don’t you show me what you’ve… really… got...” Her voice trailed off as she took in her opponent’s unconscious state. “Seriously?” She sighed. “And here I thought you guys were gonna be tough.”

The rainbow haired girl glanced around. “Soooo, I heard one more voice in here. You wanna try and feel me up too, or do I have to go looking for you?” She spun around the room slowly, and then put a hand on her throat, looking puzzled.

“Uppity cunts like you don’t have a right to oxygen,” Volker told her from somewhere. His voice echoed off the walls, making it impossible to discern where he was speaking from. “You’re gonna have to earn it from now on. And by the time you draw another breath, super slut, if you ever draw another breath, it’s going to be with a collar around your neck.”

Lira’s response was to roll her eyes and give the empty space in front of her the middle finger. Then she punched the wall next to her hard enough to shake the entire room and send dust showering down from the ceiling. There was only a single spot in the room, over by one corner, where the falling dust simply vanished. Smoke must have realized what she was doing, because he was already on the move, but Lira was faster. She dashed towards that blank spot quick as lightning, sweeping a wide fist. Grace didn’t see the woman connect, but Volker’s invisible body reappeared a moment later, already sprawled unconscious on the ground.

The super pointed at Master Serafini without looking at him, her eyes fixed on Grace. “On your knees. Now.” When he didn’t move to obey she snapped her fingers impatiently. “If you want to get out of this basement alive, fatass, pissing me off is a real dumb way to go about it..” He quickly sank to his knees. Lira’s tone was much softer when she spoke to Grace. “Is that you? Just try to relax, I’m going to get you out of there.”

Grace tried to warn her would be savior not to let the man out of her sight, moaning through her stuffed mouth with as much volume and urgency as she could manage. Lira hesitated, but the redhead’s warning had come too late, and she didn’t get out of the way before Master Serafini lunged at her from behind and slapped his hand against her back. The girl immediately went rigid, eyes wide open in shock. “That’s the cunt I burned alive two years ago,” Grace’s owner snarled. “And here’s what I did to her sister after that!” He made contact with her again and Lira’s entire body spasmed. He didn’t stop there, and Grace could see Lira shudder every time he added torment after torment.

He backed away as the rainbow haired girl collapsed to her knees, her eyes staring sightlessly ahead and her breath coming out in pained gasps. “You think you can just come in here and boss me around, you little bitch?! That you can ignore your place like that?! Savor each and every one of those deaths while you can, you fucking cunt, because yours is going to be worse than all of them!”

The glow around Lira suddenly intensified, becoming a nearly blinding light, and then receded just as quickly. “Is that… all you’ve got…?” the girl panted, slowly rising to her feet. She still looked a little shaky, but there was no pain in her expression, and she seemed like herself again by the time she straightened up and faced him. “Or was that parlor trick supposed to be impressive?”

“That’s… that’s impossible!” Master Serafini protested as Lira approached him. His hand slapped at her again, and this time the only reaction she gave was a brief flaring of the light around her. “You can’t just… just block the connection like that! No one can!”

“Yeah, I’m OP as fuck,” the super agreed, and her fist connected with his stomach. He let out a sound like a dying animal before doubling over and retching. “You good here, or should we go a few more rounds?”

“Stop…” he wheezed, then let out a falsetto scream as her knee crunched between his legs.

“I didn’t hear a please,” she said with mock sweetness.

“…please…”

“That’s better,” Lira said, and patted him condescendingly on the head. “Now get on your knees like I told you, and face the wall, bitch.” Ma- Serafini quickly obeyed, the movement clearly causing him great distress. Lira didn’t pay him any further attention, her gaze already back on Grace. “Alright, where were we?”

She began to delicately free the redhead from her bondage, lifting her off of the dildos and freeing her nipples before peeling off the clothing one piece at a time. Grace felt too stunned and exhausted to do anything but stand there, but Lira didn’t seem to mind. “It’s okay,” the rainbow haired girl whispered as she worked, taking care to cause as little pain as possible. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

It wasn’t until the last piece was off and Grace stood there naked that she allowed herself to cry. “I know,” Lira said, sweeping her into a gentle hug as she sobbed. “I know. Everything’s gonna be alright.” Grace’s hands remained awkwardly at her sides. She was more terrified now than she had been in months, terrified that this was all just a dream that she was going to wake from any second. The hope that she might not die in this basement after all, that day one hundred and thirty nine would never arrive, was so powerful that it was almost painful as it burned inside her chest.

Her hands trembled as she slowly raised them to return the embrace. She didn’t wake up. Her friend didn’t disappear. Lira felt soft and warm and real, and the redhead sobbed harder.

**********

Lira Lombardi, whom the world was now calling Starfish, sat outside what had once been an opulent mansion and listened to its owner whine and plead as he was dragged away in cuffs. His bodyguards had already been restrained, and were being watched closely by several police officers. There had been four more Aberrants with combat abilities besides the ones she’d seen in the basement, but Fela had dealt with all of them readily. Lira found herself wishing that her own two opponents had put up more of a fight; she’d been looking forward to pounding some goons into paste.

Only Serafini himself had given her any trouble, and she had to admit that she was lucky her starlight had been effective against him, protecting her mind from his psychic intrusion the same way it protected her body from physical assault. Those few seconds before she’d managed to put the shield up had been agonizing, and while she was confident that Fela wouldn’t have fallen for such an obvious trick too, having to endure all of that for minutes or hours before the woman rescued her would have been hell.

If what Grace had been forced to go through for months was even a fraction as bad as those few seconds had been, it was a miracle she hadn’t gone completely insane. As it was, the girl had seemed terrified to let go of Lira, as though one or both of them would be snatched away the instant she did. The poor thing was so exhausted that once Lira had brought her outside and helped her to lay down on the ambulance stretcher, she’d passed out in moments. She was snoring softly in the back of the ambulance now, one hand still clutching tight to the hem of Lira’s shirt as the rainbow haired girl sat next to her. As soon as things were all taken care of here, Lira would ride with Grace to the hospital.

“You did pretty good,” Fela told her, approaching the vehicle with a smile. “Didn’t even kill anyone.”

Lira briefly considered keeping her mouth shut and just accepting the praise, then shrugged. “You can thank Red for that. I left it up to her whether or not I killed that fat piece of shit. After everything he put her through, it was her call to make, not mine.”

“And if she’d told you to kill him, would you have gone through with it?” Fela asked. Her tone remained light, and she didn’t sound particularly bothered about the idea of her protege committing murder, but Lira had gotten to know the woman well enough over the last few weeks to recognize the question as a serious one. Not accusatory, but probing.

The rainbow haired girl shrugged again. “Dunno, honestly. Maybe? I’m glad she decided against it, though.” There had been no anger in Grace’s expression when she’d looked at Serafini cowering in the corner, only tiredness and pain. She’d shaken her head at Lira’s offer and said that she just wanted to go.

Fela cocked an eyebrow. “Really? I seem to remember someone having very strong opinions on the subject after she found out I’d left Cyrus alive.”

“Yeah,” Lira admitted, “and if it had been up to me back then, they’d still be trying to scrub Backdraft’s blood out of the floor. But after I thought about it for a while…”

“You decided that all life was precious?”

Lira snorted. “Fuck no! I decided death was too good for scumbags like him. I want him to live a long life, and spend it watching you and me and everyone else the fucker hurt getting to go on without him. And not as his ‘victims’ or ‘survivors’. I’m not gonna be defined by what him or anyone else has done to me. He doesn’t get to be anything but a tiny pathetic footnote in the story of our lives.”

“The best revenge is a life well lived,” the older woman recited.

“Yeah, sure. That.” Lira craned her head to watch the police car Serafini had been frog marched into vanish down the road. “Looks like everything is wrapped here. Meet you at the hospital?”

Fela nodded and turned to leave, then hesitated and looked back. “So what do you think, now that you’ve tried it for real?”

Lira looked down at the sleeping redhead beside her. All that exhaustion and fear on her face had vanished, and the peaceful expression that she wore now made her look so much more like the friend Lira remembered. The world in general was still a crapsack one, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. But thanks to what Lira had done today, it was a slightly less awful place than it had been yesterday. And for this one day, for Grace, heroes had been real, and nothing would ever take that away from her. Only a single starfish, but it was a start.

“Yeah,” Lira said, gently stroking the girl’s hair, “I think I could get used to this.”

The End of Arc 2


End file.
